Northern Utah Couple Grows Big Dreams in Community Garden
The community garden received an $80,000 award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Equity in Conservation Outreach Cooperative Agreements program.
On an acre of land tucked away amid houses in the center of Logan, Utah, the Flores Family Community Garden is growing possibilities for the diverse community it serves. More than 30 refugee families currently utilize the space for free, growing vegetables in 10 by 5-foot plots. Landowners Tony and Taya Flores plan to add another 250 plots and open the garden to more refugee and immigrant families, as well as military veterans and individuals with disabilities. “With Taya and I it has always been about how you make your community stronger, how do you help people,” Tony said.
With a recent $80,000 award from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Equity in Conservation Outreach Cooperative Agreements program, their dreams for the space have gotten a welcomed boost.
Paying it Forward
The community garden began in 2015 with the previous landowner donating the space on a yearly basis to the Cache Refugee and Immigrant Connection (CRIC). After the Flores family purchased the land and took over the community garden in 2020, the pair spent the first year observing potential improvements and getting to know the families and their needs. Funding from NRCS assisted with adding a high tunnel in 2022, and an improved irrigation system, water tanks, and an orchard of 30 fruit trees last year. A pollinator garden was also added thanks to a grant from the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food’s Utah Pollinator Habitat Program.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Equity in Conservation Outreach Cooperative Agreements program announced the selection of 139 projects. A proposal from Blacksmith Fork Conservation District and the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food received more than $200,000 to help fund three community gardens for underserved communities and veterans, including $80,000 allocated to the Flores Family Community Garden. Money from the program will help purchase supplies for the raised beds and handicap accessible raised beds years earlier than Tony and Taya had planned. “There are things we are starting to look at now because of the opportunities this grant has provided us,” Tony said. Those things include a pavilion with an outdoor kitchen and seating for everyone to gather and eat, and for educational classes on topics like canning and preserving, financial literacy, and English as a second language (ESL).
A Desire to Make a Difference
The “green thumb” goes back generations in Tony Flores’ family. His grandfather was a migrant farmer in Southern California before leasing 16 acres and farming that land until the early 1970’s. Even after their move to Utah, Tony’s father always had a garden. As a first-generation college student, Tony remembers moments of food insecurity when he was younger, and his mother’s resolve for her children to have every opportunity she didn’t. He started his first year at Utah State University not really knowing what he wanted to do. “Agriculture interested me at the time but as a person of color in 1989, there weren’t a lot of people in ag that looked like me,” Tony said. He ended up enlisting in the Army in 1993, serving in the 75th Ranger Regiment and later the 2nd Infantry Division before leaving the service to finish his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and science.
His desire to serve continued at USU, working for the Veterans Resource Office for 13 years. With the purchase of the land for the community garden, Tony and Taya saw an opportunity to connect their love of gardening with their desire to help underrepresented and underserved families and individuals. Taya looks at her own transient childhood, the frequent moves due to her father's work, and the drive she felt for her children to have solid roots. “What was important to me was a sense of community,” she said, “and now we get to do that not just for my family but for so many other people.”
It Takes a Community
Support from family, friends and volunteers has been a big part of the garden. Two horses from Tony’s mother now call a section of the land home. Tony hopes to eventually add an equine therapy program for veterans and a riding program for individuals in wheelchairs. Taya looks out from their back porch and envisions a pumpkin patch for children. In the future, they think about endowment money for scholarships. The couple has put thousands of their own money into the garden, not counting the purchase of the house and land. They don’t expect financial benefit to ever be a part of the equation, but that isn’t why they do it.
Instead, they see the fruit of their labor every night from their back window during the growing season. “All the families gardening and the kids running amok and the mom’s hollering and having a good time, “Taya said, “that’s where the payback is.”
It’s a community they look forward to growing.
