Adrienne Young - Social and Environmental Action

Social and Environmental Action

Young's second CD, The Art of Virtue released in 2005, took its theme from Benjamin Franklin's Thirteen Virtues and included copy of Franklin's pamphlet inside. The title track addressed issues that Young found herself pondering after the 2004 re-election of George W. Bush, specifically how the Republican Party had leveraged the theme of morality as a campaign tool. As she said at the time:

"There seems to be a growing passion, collectively and individually, to understand the foundation of our American culture and how we've turned from that. Personally, it steered me back toward a time when our country was rooted in agrarian ideals and words were powerful enough to begin a new world. Ben Franklin had such a practical approach toward nurturing virtue, the first point being nobody's perfect."

Since 2004 Young has been a spokeswoman for the FoodRoutes Network, which aims to aid organizations in rebuilding local, community-based food systems. Young used the release of the CD The Art of Virtue to call attention to her involvement with the FoodRoutes Network, a non-profit organization that promotes sustainable agriculture and connects consumers with local farmers who are willing to sell direct. Room to Grow furthers her involvement in this movement with lyrics and songs directly addressing the issue.

This wasn't the first time she mixed her farm action fever with artistic output: Plow to the End of the Row, her 2004 debut CD, came with a packet of seeds enclosed (and was nominated for the packaging design Grammy).

Young advocates locally-grown and sustainable agriculture. A portion of each record sold of Room to Grow goes to the Save A Seed fund, which she created with nonprofit organizations the FoodRoutes Network and the American Community Gardening Association. The money will provide non-genetically modified seeds to community gardens across North America.

Young has toured with help from the organization Buy Fresh Buy Local and each of the 49 FoodRoutes chapters. Along with her performances, each tour stop offered sustainable living workshops with local sponsors in each community. "Preserving cultural genetics and agricultural heritage is the key to true security and self-reliance", she says.

Young says her music has influenced her activism because she feels at peace in nature and wants to communicate those feelings through her music.

As of 2010, Adrienne Young has hosted and organized the Backyard Revolution, a group of people sharing and demonstrating unique skills of the past and present to help educate people in self sustainability. The Backyard Revolution was present at Floyd Fest 9 (2010) and the Heritage Harvest Festival at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Demonstrations included: Backyard dairy cow (cow included), hide tanning and bow drill fire-making, home fermentation, historic log cabin construction, arrow fletching, soap making, primitive cooking, edible and medicinal wild plants, and more. See www.backyardrevolution.com for more information.