ABQ’s YES Housing receives $150K grant to expand community gardens

A six-figure grant will bring new community gardens to developing communities in New Mexico. The goal is to help improve health through food.

YES Housing Inc., a nonprofit community development corporation in Albuquerque, announced it was one of several organizations receiving a $150,000 grant from Direct Relief’s Fund for Health Equity, which provides financial resources to organizations focused on improving community health through non-clinical efforts.

“(Direct Relief) decided they wanted to pilot some projects in the United States where they were looking at organizations like ours that were serving people that were of lower income and had less access to quality and nutrient dense food,” said Chris Baca, president and CEO of YES Housing.

With the grant, YES Housing plans to expand its Healthy Living Community Gardens Program. The program has built free community gardens in eight YES Housing communities — one in Gallup, one in Farmington and six in the Albuquerque metro area — providing free, organic produce.

“We did it because we thought it was just a good idea to have produce for our families because we could see that they were not able to access fresh produce,” Baca said.

“Their food budgets only allowed them to buy low nutrient-dense food or fast foods, so we started these programs and began to see that not only were we providing produce, they were able to get out of their apartments and work on the gardens themselves,” he added.

A majority of the grant money will go toward building three new community gardens on YES Housing properties. The remainder of the funds will be used to expand current community gardens, with a focus on rebuilding raised garden beds that have decomposed over time. Baca also hopes to construct new garden beds with leftover funds.

“We’re going to build garden beds; we’re going to bring in soil and build it up and we’re going to do different types of gardening techniques to see what works best,” Baca said.

By improving accessibility to healthier food options, residents can improve their health through their diet without worrying about financial restrictions, Baca said.

Organizations like YES Housing are “creating lasting change because they are deeply rooted in the communities they serve, possess firsthand understanding of their needs and are uniquely positioned to deliver impactful solutions,” said Byron Scott, co-chair of the Fund for Health Equity and CEO of Direct Relief.