Community Organizations

Flowers are the art and bullets are the struggle. The Flowers and Bullets Collective are organizers creating outlets for underserved youth and communities, which highlight the life we live and the places that we come from. By sharing skills, promoting place-based connections in the barrio, and listening to each other’s stories they promote sustainable ways of living. These ways of life address some of the traumas in their community, caused by disproportionate minority incarceration, drug addiction, physical and mental violence, food insecurity, health issues, and economic disparity.

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Crop diversity is key to achieving sustainable food security both globally and within our own region of focus, the southwestern U.S. and northwestern Mexico. Our approach to food security focuses on seed security, which relies on the conservation and sharing of appropriate crop diversity and the knowledge to use that diversity effectively.

The Garden Kitchen is a UA project that provides gardening, cooking, and healthy living classes in South Tucson. They have a culinary program that focuses on nutrition and food processing and a gardening program to educate community members, primarily adults, about the sources of their food. SGW interns support the Garden Kitchen’s programs by helping educators prepare for and give classes, both at the Garden Kitchen’s facility and at other sites around the city.

The Community Food Bank (CFB) serves the food security needs of many southern Arizonans. CFB's programs range from education and advocacy to helping families set up household and community gardens, and coordinating farmers' markets.

This beautiful garden site at the base of “A” Mountain is a living agricultural museum and educational park featuring heritage fruit trees and historic gardening techniques, as well as looking to the future of food cultivation in a rapidly changing climate. They are hoping to expand their heritage fruit tree propagation program to local schools and eventually create a living lab.

We have been working with TVF since 2011. The site has a large farm across the street from Trader Joe’s near the riverbed. The operation includes an extensive vegetable garden, chickens, a mushroom shed, play area, and outdoor classroom space. SGW interns help with TVF’s gardening and nutrition programs for a variety of schools and community groups. They also offer a weekly farmer’s market and give tours to the general public.

The Food Conspiracy Co-op helps to grow food for taste tests of locally-grown crops throughout the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD). In collaboration with Tucson High School, interns from the UA Community & School Garden Workshop course are able to work alongside high school students to plant, manage, and harvest radishes, sugar snap peas, carrots, and tomatoes, among others.