Farewell & Thank You!

CommunityGrows would like to thank and wish our employees – Emily Dial and Debbie Harris – a grateful goodbye and our hope that they continue influence the community as they did with us! Both Emily and Debbie have gone out of their way to help and tend our community gardens.

Emily was our garden & nutrition educator at John Muir Elementary and Koshland Garden and says:

“Working with CommunityGrows this past year has been the experience of a lifetime. As I stepped into my role as Garden and Nutrition Educator this past October, I had no idea the way the position would transform me. I witnessed Koshland Garden flow and bloom and I could feel myself changing along side it. Through this evolution, I learned the ways that a garden and an educator serve many of the same purposes to a community. They can both provide radical abundance, transformative challenges, necessary refuge, and a source of reciprocal thriving.  As I head north to Canada to continue similar work, I will be taking many lessons of cyclical growth, teamwork, patience, and confidence with me. I hope that I am leaving behind a sense of empowerment with my students and the knowledge that they are as much stewards of this world as anyone else. All of this personal and professional development could not have happened without the community members, John Muir teachers, after-school program facilitators, fellow CG staff members, and, most importantly, students, who were so gracious and generous with their time, tales, and teachings. I am so incredibly grateful to all of you and will deeply miss this community and this organization. Thank you, CommunityGrows, for encouraging me to flourish, and please send your warmest thoughts to me in Toronto!”

Debbie was our BEETs Educator and Program Manager. She inspired so many teens in the program and taught them to love and appreciate the gardens and that, just like the garden, if you work hard and have patience, it will pay off.

“I learned that Community Grows is comprised of a really great staff that are dedicated to their work. I think the focus of the programming and the strength of staff makes for a really strong organization that is mission aligned. I did however miss farming terribly so I am managing the farm at Urban Adamah. I am pleased that I get to continue to work in the food justice movement that is in solidarity with the work of Community Grows. I hope we can find ways to share resources and strategies that build more resilient communities.”

As they move to on to their next adventure, we thank them very much and we wish them the best on continuing to influence their new communities as they did with us!