Spokane’s New Roots garden grows food security and community for refugees

New Roots community garden, located behind the North Spokane YMCA and tended by refugee clients of the International Rescue Committee in Spokane, didn’t begin with a financial grant like many nonprofit enterprises. It started through the community.

“This was the community coming together with the little pieces we had – the Y had this space and Growing Neighbors had this connection and the IRC and our clients had this need,” said Maddi Beal, IRC Spokane’s health and wellness programs manager.

Other parts of Spokane “showed up,” too, Beal said. Northwest Harvest supplied the seeds and community members donated their time and other needed gardening materials to the project.

What started four years ago on a 629-square-foot plot of land divided up by raised beds is now a single plot reaching over 2,100 square feet. It grows enough produce to be considered a small farm, and one of the goals of the North YMCA is to have it be labeled as one officially.

“We are not building something new – we are working alongside Spokane’s existing food network, strengthening and filling gaps where they exist,” Beal said.

Many hands work the garden today, but that wasn’t always the case. Angela Hanni, YMCA of the Inland Northwest’s hunger initiatives coordinator, oversaw the association’s three gardens, a year-round greenhouse and a food program, and she needed help.

IRC Spokane reached out to Johnny Edmondson, the director of Growing Neighbors – a nonprofit that oversees about 100 community gardens – and he reached out to Hanni.

“It just blossomed from there,” Hanni said.

Planting New Roots programs in the U.S.

New Roots is one of IRC International’s domestic programs to help new Americans acclimate to their communities by providing them opportunities to contribute to their neighborhoods and to increase their food security.

Right now, there are a combination of 66 New Roots gardens, urban farms and markets across 13 U.S. cities, including Boise; Baltimore, Maryland; and New York City.

“It takes like a lot of different life forms in every state,” Beal said, adding those decisions are based on the specific city’s IRC clientele and agricultural capacity. “Some of the programs really utilize it as a microenterprise track. And then others really utilize it more as a food security style programming, which is what IRC in Spokane really focuses on.”

Edmondson, who founded Growing Neighbors in 2016, said that while refugees use some of their garden sites within specific neighborhoods, New Roots was the first one they oversaw that was primarily for the immigrant refugee community.

He hopes to connect more refugees to their local neighborhoods in addition to the New Roots garden, to create more spaces of gathering as locally as possible.

“That’s the dream … to connect with neighbors of diverse backgrounds to share life and culture and tools and food and all the things in the spaces they already inhabit to care for one another and to care for the land,” Edmondson said.

Growing ‘produce of comfort’

One of the main goals of IRC Spokane’s effort through the garden is to increase food security within their refugee community, echoing Edmondson’s vision of neighbors sharing land, food and culture.

Spokane Trends reports that in Spokane County 12.5% of its overall population is food insecure (compared to Washington’s at 10.5%). However, 17.4% of Spokane County’s youth population is food insecure, which is higher than the U.S. overall youth population’s number at 16.2% and Washington state’s at 14.2%.

Another goal of the New Roots garden is to make sure traditional food security boxes like those given to their clients by Northwest Harvest, have culturally appropriate and religiously considerate foods, like halal, kosher and vegan offerings.

“Not every food distribution service has the ability to offer those things. One, they’re sometimes very cost prohibitive but also often take some very specific storage requirements that not everybody can tend to,” Beal said, adding that’s where New Roots and the refugees who work the soil can use their skills and knowledge directly for their respective communities.

Beal calls these vegetables “produce of comfort … (foods) that feel familiar and navigable (that) are really important.”

“I think one of the biggest requests that we get every year is okra. We grow a ton. It feels like an actual metric ton of okra,” Beal said, adding they also grow very specific herbs and spices and produce they used to grow in their home country.

The garden also provides refugees a sense of belonging, Hanni said.

“It’s a very underserved community,” Hanni said. “We do try to source seeds from out of the country, so we can give them a little sense of home.”

Hanni conducted a survey with the refugee community to determine which plants they wanted to grow, then searched the internet to find international sources for those specific seeds. So far, they have grown 10 such seeds.

Hanni has found the saffron crocus bulb to be the most interesting.

Saffron is harvested from the crocus flower and is used in various international cuisines – from Middle Eastern curries to African tagines. It is considered the world’s most expensive spice as it takes hundreds of flowers to produce a commercially useful amount.

“It took me a couple of years to get it because you have to buy it at a certain time of year. And if you’re not right on top of it, they’re gone,” Hanni said. This year’s saffron harvest in the autumn will be New Roots’ first.

Sprouting the futures of refugee youth

Youth Roots is another IRC Spokane program that uses the New Roots garden as a source to inspire refugee youth to take advantage of all they’re able in the U.S.

“Back home in the refugee camp, all these youth don’t have a lot of opportunities,” said Bikash Chhetri, IRC Spokane’s youth specialist, who leads this program and has seen several youth make strides toward their futures. “I’m just telling my youth mentees … ‘go out there and take all the advantages that this country is providing to you.’ ”

Chhetri arrived in the U.S. with his grandparents about 15 years ago after living in a refugee camp in Nepal where he was born and raised. He uses the challenges he overcame attending Ferris High School and learning English at the same time to encourage his mentees.

“It wasn’t easy, but I did it,” Chhetri said, “and now I am working with IRC,” which he said was his dream since he was 8 years old after he was inspired by the IRC, the United Nations and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in his refugee camp. He said these organizations saved his life, first by providing his family food staples in the camp and second by helping them immigrate to the U.S.

He also uses his knowledge of earning a bachelor’s in international relations at Eastern Washington University, while living in an apartment on his own working full time, to assist his mentees in applying to colleges and receiving financial aid.

As a 10-week paid internship through IRC Spokane, Youth Roots focuses on providing youth a holistic set of skills in agriculture, job readiness, resume writing and community engagement.

“We have speakers that come in from credit unions that help us teach money management skills for youth … they’re gaining these applicable skills both for applying for university and for jobs,” Beal said.

This summer will mark the third consecutive cohort of about 10 refugees ages 16 to 18, from several nations including China, Sudan, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Burma and Democratic Republic of the Congo. Chhetri has witnessed improvement in his mentees after their time in New Roots.

“I have heard from high school teachers. They were saying that they see some positive changes in our youth since they joined our Youth Roots program,” Chhetri said, explaining teachers that were impressed with their students’ improvements in teamwork and communication skills. “I’m so happy about that and that makes me proud and makes my youth proud.”

One of his recent mentees wants to learn more about agriculture for his future goals.

“Because of this garden right here, he’s thinking about … going to college doing an agricultural career,” Chhetri said. “We are working with refugees and even if we can change one person’s life, that is massive.”

This story was funded by a grant from Humanities Washington.