Sister Jose Women's Center

Cultivating Hope for Homeless Women

Thrive and Grow Gardens needs your help raising funds to plant a vegetable, flower and herb garden for the Sister Jose Women's Center (Sisters Helping Sisters), a charity in Tucson Arizona.

The homeless women who come to this shelter have been victims of domestic abuse and human trafficking, and have experienced tremendous violence in their lives.

Having the opportunity to grow something with their own hands is an important part of healing from trauma because it speaks to the basic human needs they have been deprived of, and it also speaks to the deeper emotional needs they have -- uprooting despair and cultivating hope. The green space developed by Thrive and Grow Gardens will be a peaceful place where they can connect with nature and, most importantly, with themselves.

In their garden space already are four block raised beds that were previously constructed by some of the women there which we will be improving.

The funds raised will provide them a new vegetable garden in a beautiful Thrive Premium raised garden bed with custom metal corners and frame system which will come equipped with our shade cloth kit. In addition to the bed system, we will add soil for the new Thrive bed and existing block beds, fertilizer, plants, and additional infrastructure including irrigation. The money raised will cover the cost of supplies, labor, tools, class materials and continuing garden support throughout the year.

Thrive and Grow Gardens will be providing customized curriculum and maintence assistance which includes hands-on weekly gardening workshops for the women at the shelter by our expert staff of women gardeners. Each week the women will learn things like proper watering, diagnosing plant needs, fertilizing, pruning, harvesting, integrated pest management, and all the other intricacies of gardening! 

Any additional funds raised will be donated to the Zerena Lopez Family Memorial Kitchen at the women's shelter to help purchase kitchen supplies and groceries.

It has been a long-time goal for me to start a community effort to provide garden spaces for people who can't afford to do it on their own.  After sharing this idea with some gardening friends of mine, and hearing such a positive response, I decided to start this go-fund-me to make a greater impact, and give the rest of the Tucson gardening community the opportunity to help.

We need to reach our target goal of $5,200 so that we can complete the garden in time for the spring and provide the continuing support and education they need. It makes me so happy to know that we have already received our first pledge for $5,000 and have begun building!

Such a generous show of support from our community makes me so grateful to facilitate this project, giving inspiration and hope to the beautiful sisters of this wonderful organization. 

-Michael Ismail, owner of Thrive and Grow Gardens