In Seedfolks, what does Sam have to do with the story?

The narrator of Chapter 6 in Seedfolks, Sam, is an activist who has spent his entire life helping people and fighting for peace.  Now that Sam is older, he focuses his efforts on the small garden in Cleveland in hopes of continuing his work of bringing people together. Sam hires a teenager to help him plant his garden and even gives the teenager a small plot of land to grow pumpkins.  However, Sam also sees that the garden has problems.  There’s still trash everywhere, and water is a problem. Sam devises a plan to have the kids working in the garden think up ideas like collecting rain in barrels to water the garden.  The biggest problem Sam sees is that the garden is still somewhat segregated where each ethnic group has staked claims to different parts of the garden.  Some of the gardeners have even put up fences to keep people out of their rows of crops. 

Sam is a problem-solver, and his purpose in the story is to be the moral barometer for the group of people using the vacant lot. Sam seeks to resolve problems and make everyone aware of the wonderful community they are forming together. Sam describes his purpose in the garden when he says, “You've seen fishermen mending the rips in their nets. That's what I do, only with people.”