Tyrone Day // Horticulturist , Manager for Restorative Farms
Tyrone Day is the Horticulturist and Director of the The Seedling Farm at the MLK Freedom Garden. A Dallas native, Tyrone was raised in the South Dallas area. He is a Horticulture graduate of the Trinity Valley Community College at Atkins, Texas. A working horticulturist for the past 20 years, Tyrone joined the Restorative Farms mission in 2017 when he took on his current role at The Seedling Farm at the MLK Freedom Garden. In the first year of production, under his leadership the 16 x 20 greenhouse produced over 12,000 vegetables plants from seeds, 85% of which were donated to local and residential gardens. So far this year, he and his team have produced over 8,000 vegetable plants with a 2019 production goal of 40,000 seedlings.
The work that Tyrone is doing has proven its intended purposes in the South Dallas community and abroad: To train others how to eat healthy and live healthy lives, while attacking the food desert, the unemployment desert, diabetes and obesity, along with creating sustainable gardens with an horticulture educational component in the Dallas and Fort Worth area. He continues to make himself readily available at the disposal of the community for which as he states: “I'm very grateful for and for this journey where I have had the opportunity to partner with Texas AgriLife (Texas A&M), Big Tex Farms, & Cornerstone Baptist Church, three partners who I truly enjoy working with, along with a host of other supporting vendors: Bonton Farms, Austin Street Shelter/Hope Garden, Cornerstone Baptist Church, IBOC Baptist Church, City Square, Oak Cliff Garden Group.”
Owen Lynch, Ph.D. // Co-Founder Restorative Farms & Get Healthy Dallas
Owen is an Associate Professor & Altshuler Distinguish Teaching Professor in the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU. He is the director of the Corporate Communication & Public Affairs Organizational Communication Track. He also a Senior Researcher Fellow at the Hunt Institute of Engineering & Humanity at the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU. As director of community research he leads Asset Based Community Development initiative-utilizes existing local assets and communities to address current problems.
He is active in the city of Dallas with regards to healthy, fresh, food access and food justice issues. He has served and is a member of the Mayor’s Poverty Task Force and other city-food interest groups. He is a co-founder of Restorative Farms a professional urban farm system located in the heart of South Dallas Fair Park, an urban food desert. It creates a systemic farming mechanism that will both produce locally grown fresh food and provide local jobs and a much needed local and beneficial restorative justice jobs program. He currently serves as the Executive Director for Get Healthy Dallas, a nonprofit organization he helped form dedicated to addressing the lack of healthy food options, adequate education, and economic development opportunities in South Dallas, Fair Park.
Brad Boa
Brad Boa has been a serial entrepreneur, founding several companies in the last 30 years the most recent of which worked with companies such as Dell, HP, Toyota, eInk, and Segway. His purchase of a small East Texas ranch as a retirement project lead to his interest in local agriculture and it’s impact on local economies and lives, both in rural Texas as well as S. Dallas. A co-founder of Restorative Farms, Brad is also on the Board of Miles of Freedom, a Dallas-based nonprofit dedicated to helping people transition to life after prison. A co-founder of the Trumpets4Kids Annual Golf Classic, benefiting Trumpets4Kids, another Dallas-based nonprofit working with talented young musicians in Dallas’ under-served communities. He is on the Board of Advisors for the MVSU BB King Recording Studio on the campus of Mississippi Valley State University ( an HBCU) and on the Steering and Coalition Committees of the Latino Voter Empower Coalition, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to making sure that Latinos are part of this most quintessential right, privilege and obligation: voting.
Drew Demler
Drew is the Director of Horticulture for the State Fair of Texas where he is also the co-founder and head grower of the Big Tex Urban Farms. Prior to joining the State Fair, he was one of the head Horticulturalists at the Dallas Arboretum. He brings his over 24 years of experience in the green industry to the mission of Big Tex Urban Farms, a project started by the State Fair of Texas in 2016 that is designed to have positive impact on the South Dallas Food dessert and beyond through produce donation and education. His experience and industry credentials, and the support of Big Tex Urban Farms have been instrumental in helping Restorative Farms successfully reach important S. Dallas Agrisystem milestones.
Robert Curry
Robert Curry is working with the City of Dallas to establish its first urban agriculture program. He has worked for the City for 15 years following a career in businesses including Fortune 500 and small company startups. He is a lifelong gardener and founding member of three community gardens in Dallas. After high school, Robert attained a Bachelor’s degree in Business from the University of Missouri and then a Master’s degree from the University of Kansas.
Robert has been recognized by the National Center for Healthy Housing, American Public Health Association and the Environmental Protection Agency for his work improving housing conditions in order to reduce incidents of childhood asthma in Dallas. As a resident of Dallas, Texas, Robert will continue efforts to increase food supplies in order to reduce and eventually eliminate food insecurity within the Dallas population.