As a nonprofit organization, DUG operates and assists with the creation and management of over 60 metro-area community gardens and small parks. 

Primarily serving low to moderate income populations in urban neighborhoods, DUG provides opportunities for participants to supplement their diet with produce grown in nearby public gardens. Through the gardens, participants assume responsibility to improve their community, initiate a sense of pride in their surroundings, and improve their nutritional status through healthy, fresh food. 

DUG was created in 1985 with a handful of volunteers who created three gardens in northwest Denver. In 1993, DUG took a more organized approach with the hiring of co-executive directors. Today, DUG’s 60 active sites stretch beyond Denver and into five surrounding cities. 

As we move forward, our mission remains as relevant today as it was in 1985. We believe in: “growing community” - one urban garden at a time. Critical to our mission is the belief that we need to come alongside neighborhoods, in a support role, as they work to create their own urban garden. We seek to enable, unite and empower participants to reach out and build their community. The DUG gardens have become a community focus for producing food, fostering neighborhood activities and hosting education programs for over 22,000 individuals annually. 

What does DUG do? Here’s a sampling: 

  • offers non-traditional training and education of gardeners, school groups  and community-based programs for youth and adults,
  • recruits and coordinates volunteer labor teams,
  • provides free vegetable seeds and transplants to over 5,000 people each year,
  • plans, designs, and constructs garden and farm sites and their on-going improvements

The Underground News

Keep updated with DUG and the community gardens in Denver with The Underground News, DUG's quarterly newsletter . If you are interested in receiving this free publication, please send your mailing address to dirt@dug.org or call DUG at 303.292.9900.

DUG Board of Directors:
Rebecca Winning, President
Arzella Dirksen, Vice President
Deborah Enoch Davis, Secretary
Paul Egan, Treasurer
John Hershey
Dr. Jill Litt
David Marshall
Dorothy Marshall

DUG Executive Director:
Michael Buchenau