Global Gardens

Global Gardens is a land-based training program for refugee farmers and gardeners. We provide land to those living in apartment complexes, and entrepreneurial training to those wishing to market their produce. Partners in Boise help us to provide community garden spaces for over 200 families.

We are raising $8,000 this year! Each farmer who participates in our entrepreneurial program pays a program fee to cover materials and supplies at our shared incubator farm. However, the actual cost of being in the program is $1,000 more than the program fee, per farmer. We rely on donations to keep the program affordable for new farmers. Eight farmers currently participate in our entrepreneur program. We are reaching out to you to help us empower our refugee farmers by sponsoring them for a year.

Meet some of our successful growers!

Safiya Abdi farms in Boise at our incubator farm and on another, city-owned plot. She specialized in beautiful, big, juicy heirloom tomatoes. In 2014 she gave birth to her fifth child and received a cancer diagnosis in the same year. She continued farming through her treatment and recovery, helping keep her family financially stable while she took a break from her other job. She is now back in good health. Safiya and her husband Mamo will offer a CSA pickup and Pop-Up Produce stand (in partnership with the Capital City Public Market and St Luke’s Hospital) every Monday at St. Luke's Downtown, beginning in late May.

Abdikadir Chimwaga is also has a plot at our incubator farm in Boise. Abdikadir was born in Somalia, but grew up and spent most of his life in Kenya before coming to the United States ten years ago. He met his wife Sarbah, in Boise, and they married in 2010. Abdikadir brought his impressive farming skills from Kenya where he participated in an organization that started and trained future farmers how to grow food in environmentally-friendly ways. This is his second year running his CSA and Pop-Up Produce Stand (in partnership with the Capital City Public Market and St Luke’s Hospital) at the St. Luke's Hospital in Meridian on Tuesdays.