The constant gardener; Toyota has worked to cultivate a down-home American image.(Toyota 50)

Automotive News, October, 2007 by Crate, James R.

Byline: James R. Crate

On a humid mid-August afternoon between rains in the backyard garden of a Detroit elementary school, 9-year-old Fabiola Orozco is hard at work under the white and blood-red blooms of a towering hibiscus. Digging into the dampened earth with a hand spade, she yanks out a tuft of crab grass and tosses it into a nearby plastic bucket.

"You have to pull weeds because they steal water and food from the other plants,'' the tiny fourth-grader explains to a visitor. "The plants need to be healthy in the fall so they can come back next year.''

Fabiola "doesn't know too much'' about Toyota, she admits, but the pretty youngster and her garden labors offer a fetching example of how far the world's biggest automaker is extending...