What does a truly sustainable life look like? This question is often relegated to economists, politicians, and environmental activists, but how many of us are wrestling with questions of personal or communal sustainability? What does enough look like for me? How much is enough to take care of those in my direct sphere of influence? Darrie Ganzhorn, Executive Director of Homeless Garden Project, is thinking about these questions, not just for herself or her family, but for hundreds of people on the streets. Personal Sustainability The Homeless Garden Project is blurring lines between those experiencing homelessness and the wider community of Santa Cruz, CA. It is an integrated urban farm, workshop, and educational center, providing transitional employment training and support for homeless individuals. It also enables volunteers, customers, and interns to work alongside the trainees in stimulating a local, organic food system. The primary goal is to equip people experiencing homelessness with the tools, training, and support they need to become individually sustainable. They learn a trade to become financially independent, and they work alongside volunteers to become community-oriented. Ganzhorn and her team have refined the vision and the strategy over several years. While it used to be a three-year transitional program, they have streamlined it into a one-year process, promoting resilience, autonomy, and personal sustainability. “We found that at the end of the program people didn’t want to leave,” she says, and while everyone is welcome in The Garden, the team wants it to be a launching pad, not a permanent home. “The mission of ‘helping people achieve wellbeing as they define it’ started to feel too vague,” says Ganzhorn. “So, we made it more practical — we are focused on helping people get sustainable jobs and housing in addition to promoting a healthy local food system.” Their updated philosophy has proven fruitful with thousands of trainee hours logged, a 90% success rate of getting trainees into housing, and 97% success rate of graduates finding stable jobs. Answers to questions of sustainability cannot be vague because people’s needs are not vague. The Garden gives people on the streets the practical resources they need to get back on their feet, but it also empowers them to stay upright when they get there. Growing Food, Growing People For Ganzhorn, The Garden is a beautiful dance between independence and interdependence. She believes that as people’s competency increases, so does their connectedness. Her mission is to give the less-fortunate a chance to contribute something valuable to their community. The trainees get to watch the work of their hands literally grow into resources that can sustain them and others. “The farm is an incredibly tangible way for people to see the impact of their work.” Ganzhorn’s emphasis on personal resilience would be incomplete without her passion for togetherness. She notes that the two are inseparable in a healthy system: “If you want to make an impact on a social issue and you yourself are not experiencing the problem, the most effective thing you can do is bring people together and help them find their own solutions.” Helping people recover personal and economic viability in the context of a generous community creates social sustainability as well. It doesn’t stop at “helping people help themselves.” The Garden is helping people help others. The team believes that paying it forward through a life of generosity is what creates sustainable communities. The Garden is a place where people share their knowledge, skills, time, and resources. They grow the food that sustains their community, and they grow as humans in the process. What Does “Enough” Look Like? “The farm is a place where so many elements of wellbeing come together,” Ganzhorn says. It has become an ecosystem of health and generosity. The Project doesn’t just help people become self-sufficient; it helps them become generous. When we ask how much is enough, we are often thinking about our scrambles for financial wealth or success: “How much is enough for me — to be successful, to be fulfilled, to be happy?” But The Garden is teaching people to go a step further and ask, “how much is enough for everyone?” For Ganzhorn and her team, the real point of becoming self-sustaining is to empower generosity. None of us are living in a vacuum, and The Garden is a perfect place to practice living a life that’s bigger than any one of us. Ganzhorn explains that “enough” is a way of organizing life together: “When we work together, abundance becomes a way of life. ‘Enough’ looks like peace, growth, and taking care of each other.” If we all lived our lives this way, pouring what we have into our communities, perhaps our cities would pour much more back into us. Maybe the real question is: how much is enough for me…to share?
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