Root2Fruit Youth Foundation led a youth-driven effort at Austin Town Hall, where they cleaned the park, planted trees and created a safer space, all while encouraging the community to pledge support for their Protect Our Hood initiative on April 26.
The Protect Our Hood project fosters unity in Austin through youth-led beautification and a community code of shared values.
The initiative resulted in the creation of a “safe zone” — a community space activated by youth-led efforts to promote safety, foster engagement and inspire positive change. Root2Fruit Youth Foundation is a youth-led community organization rooted in care, healing, and empowerment.
Root2Fruit Youth Foundation’s founder and strategy lead Aisha T. Oliver reflected on some of the most powerful and memorable moments on that day.
“Being able to help clean up and build relationships with people who don’t live in the neighborhood but believe in the work was powerful. Some supporters don’t even live in the city, but they’ve been following Root2Fruit and came out to show their support, which is always a major accomplishment for us,” Oliver said.
Root2Fruit Youth was formed in 2020 during the pandemic and created the Austin Safety Action Plan (ASAP), a completely youth-led initiative. Neighborhood kids met regularly to organize the plan, ultimately designating a local safe zone for their community.
The youth who helped create the ASAP safe zone were connected through the park district, where Oliver had originally met and brought them together. This past Protect Our Hood was centered at the Austin Town Hall Cultural Center, which participants consider the headquarters for the Austin Safety Action Plan.
“That (ASAP) safe zone is the area where we were cleaning up and doing all the work. So it’s really shaped around the idea that we’ve created a model for community safety by activating safe spaces — and it’s a youth-led model. That’s where Protect Our Hood came from,” Oliver said.
Oliver said Protect Our Hood is a code created for the community, one that they want people to pledge to those who support the youth and their efforts — and they ask them to take that pledge. The Protect Our Hood Community Code outlines 16 principles aimed at uniting the community through shared values, beautification efforts and relationship-building.
A volunteer shovels mulch at the Protect our Hood Earth Day event at Austin Town Hall on Saturday April 26, 2025 | Todd Bannor 
Volunteers rakce mulch around a tree at the Protect our Hood Earth Day event at Austin Town Hall on Saturday April 26, 2025 | Todd Bannor 
Aisha Oliver at the sign in table at the Protect our Hood Earth Day event at Austin Town Hall on Saturday April 26, 2025 | Todd Bannor 
Volunteers fill wheel barrows with mulch at the Protect our Hood Earth Day event at Austin Town Hall on Saturday April 26, 2025 | Todd Bannor
“Anytime ASAP is activating, it’s going to be something done within the safe zone,” Oliver said.
The next Protect Our Hood event is scheduled for June, planned around the time when younger children in the neighborhood attend day camp. The event will focus on helping the park district clean, organize and prepare the park for the approximately 200 to 220 kids participating in summer camp.
“We’re going to help the park district prepare for a summer camp for the smaller kids at the Austin Town Hall. We’ll also be doing some work in the Harambee Garden,” Oliver said.
When asked about the impact she hopes Root2Fruit will have on youth in the next five or 10 years, Oliver said their goal is to create a generation of change agents, seekers, thinkers and doers.
“We create the village that we want to see and we do that through our young people, training them to replace us. That has been my purpose since I started Root2Fruit — training these young people to one day replace me and do the same for the generation behind them,” Oliver said.