La Granjita, a Santa Ana community garden tended by the hands of activists, youth, and urban farmers, could soon be uprooted from their current location.
This past weekend, the garden members commemorated eight years of hard work with a community celebration featuring arts, crafts, and music while contemplating what may lie ahead.
Editor’s note: This is an occasional series where Voice of OC works with local community photographers to offer residents a first-hand look at the local sites and scenes of Orange County.
Garden leaders were notified earlier this year that the church property where they currently reside was being sold to new owners.
La Granjita is now searching for a more permanent home, according to farm organizers.
“The notification came as a really big surprise to us and it was like an awakening moment for us, because just like that, eight years of so much work can be swiped away,” said Abel Ruiz, who leads the program as a project director for Community in Resistance for Ecological and Cultural Empowerment (CRECE).
“We are now in a new chapter of our project.”
Starting in 2016, the ⅓ acre garden hosts a variety of programs with the main goal of serving the Santa Ana community and creating healthy, equitable and resilient food systems.
The newest member to the CRECE team, Kimberly Martinez, notes how welcoming and accessible the urban farm is to all members of the community. Community members looking to get involved can volunteer at any age or skill level.
“This little urban farm is so helpful in letting people see things first hand without a rigid [set of] experience,” said Martinez. “[La Granjita] is just welcome to everyone.”
Over the past few years, La Granjita has become a cornerstone for the Santa Ana community.
Managed by CRECE, the garden specifically works towards building local food systems to educate the community and build food sovereignty.
“It’s important to start building these local food systems, because as community members, we often don’t get a say in the food that we’re consuming and the food that we’re getting from our grocery store,” said Jessenya Reyes, CRECE Community Engagement Coordinator, who has seen its growth since volunteering in 2016 and coming back in 2022 to join the team.
“We may not have as much control over the big, industrial food system, but having these spaces is a way to take back some of that ownership.”
Starting with a few raised garden beds, La Granjita has reached a number of different milestones since then.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, La Granjita launched its Community Supported Agriculture program to fight the growing demand for food access in Santa Ana.
In 2022, CRECE launched the SALSA (Santa Ana Locally Supported Agriculture) Food Hub, Santa Ana’s first worker-cooperative within urban agriculture. In doing so, La Granjita hosts a food stand on Saturday for residents to purchase produce or subscribe to a food box based on their income-tax bracket.
Steve Anticona, the Regenerative Economies Coordinator, who joined the CRECE team in October 2022 notes how the La Granjita has been important in building multi-generational communities with people of all ages working together in the garden.
“I love that we are seeing some community members here, that’s what we want,” said Anticona. “Ultimately, we want the farm to be a place of knowledge and community in a city that needs it. Santa Ana is one of those cities that doesn’t have as many green spaces.”
While the future of La Granjita remains unknown, Ruiz notes that the team is hopeful that they will find a permanent home for the project, ensuring its continuity and impact in Santa Ana.
Learn more about their efforts for land acquisition on their website.
“I see it as part of our development, growth and the evolution of the project,” said Ruiz.
“We are happy to be in a community with so many organizations and community members and we trust that all of us are gonna move forward from this.”
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