Words by Smiley Team
Going green and living off the grid has been a trend picking up momentum over the past few years – with popular television shows such as Tiny Living and Container Homes showing people doing their part to reduce their carbon footprint.
Meet Quita Jackson: one of those people. After retiring as a producer from ABC15 for 20 years, she and her family decided to focus their efforts on green living and their sustainable organisation, Green Desert.
Quita and her family had been practicing this lifestyle for a while now. She grew and made her own baby food for her sons, who are now 14 and 18 years of age – so, it came as no surprise when she started making videos to encourage others to take on more of a green lifestyle.
"I started out with gardening after experiencing deaths in my family," she says. "Most of those deaths came due to health issues. I wanted something different for my family and I, so we started with just the basics and planting the fruits and vegetables that we like and from there it progressed to having chickens and preserving rain water."
The goal of Green Desert is to make a self-sufficient lifestyle with zero waste practical for society. Quita explores these principles in a sustainable residential home in the city and an off-grid tiny home in Texas. The aim is to inspire and inform people about the benefits of a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle, and to teach the importance of protecting our natural environment.
"If we can make the desert green, we can be green anywhere," the website states.
[Read More: 6 Online Sources of Sustainable Houseplants]
Green Desert focuses on three main issues: water, oranic foods, and a zero-waste way of living. Although this lifestyle maybe hard to understand for some, Jackson knew that this was the best choice for her family.
“We learned a long time ago that we knew what was best for us and that this was something we wanted," she says. "We knew that we had to lead by example and stop letting society and other people deter us and get it done. The more we did, the more inspired we were, which then inspired others."
One initiative Green Desert is working on is collaborating with local schools to help plant community gardens on the school grounds. "We don’t want to force anyone to live our lifestyle, but we do encourage everyone to leave less of a footprint and protect our natural environment,” she adds.
To learn more about Green Desert, head to the website at www.greendesert.org.
