Annette Smith and Karl Paige: The Seeds Of Change

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (CBS 5)  -- A block once a neighborhood dump is now a community showplace, thanks to this week's Jefferson Award winners who planted the seeds of transformation.

The 1700 block of Quesada Avenue used to be lined with trash.

Karl Paige did what he could to clean up the area in front of his home.

"It got so that I had to clean up farther down the street, and then it got so that I had to clean up the whole block," Paige said.

At the same time, neighbor Annette Smith was looking for a way to repair the holes her brother had made in the median digging for fishing worms.

"I felt ashamed because my brother had done it. So I said, well, flowers would be good out there," Smith said. "So we started digging the grass up, shaking the dirt out, and planting plants."

Karl and Annette teamed up, using a few seeds, cuttings, and transplants to fill up the median. Where once there were weeds, a garden grew.

Smith said, "Some of the neighbors would plant little plots in front of their house, and we would help them. As we got plants, we would just migrate up and down the block."

Today the Quesada Garden stretches from Third until Newhall Street -- an entire city block. What Karl and Annette started changed not just the landscape here, but the character of their neighborhood.

Jeffrey Betcher says he bought his home on Quesada because he couldn't afford a more upscale area.

"Underneath these steps, crack addicts would sleep. I would find hypodermics and condoms all around. Witnessed a stabbing three feet from where we're sitting and washed the blood off the sidewalk," Betcher said.

But all that changed a few years ago when Annette and Karl got to work on the garden.

"We suddenly had a place to gather, and something to talk about, and the isolation that people felt, and the real fear that people felt, was broken," Betcher said.

More neighbors started pitching in, forming an association to guide the project. College students showed up for community work days. And the city contributed water and more plants.

Karl's pride is the collard tree he clips from to plant greens. And there are more vegetables, herbs, cacti and flowers.

"I don't think they fully knew the way things were going to turn out. I don't think any of us did. But it's amazing what planting a few seeds can do," Betcher said.

For transforming their block into a city oasis where neighbors can create a real community, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Annette Smith and Karl Paige.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)