2023 Impact Report

As with every year at DUG, 2023 was full of adventure. And breakthroughs.

Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) continues to be a gem of metro Denver. Something for Colorado to be immensely proud of. As one of the largest independent community garden organizations in the country, a DUG site can be found in nearly every neighborhood across seven counties. 

Our 200 gardens continued to thrive with the baseline infrastructure initiative and a doubling down on support of our tremendous Garden Leaders. Not to mention our community of over 17,000 gardeners going strong while growing food and building community. 

The Etkin Family Food Forest Initiative reached its 20-site goal and started to refine its process including community input meetings, new site recruitment, and Tree Keeper training and support. With trees in the mix, DUG’s impact grows exponentially. In 5-10 years we’ll be producing thousands of pounds of fresh organic produce freely available to the community. These legacy installations will be in place for decades producing organic fruit and nuts while contributing to Denver’s tree canopy. We couldn’t be happier about the success of this new program. 

DUG’s Food Access programming added the Culturally Inclusive Seeds program to meet the needs of our diverse community as they seek to grow foods from their heritage.  

Our Education and Engagement team wrapped up our ECE teacher cohort in addition to delivering Urban Roots Workshops for all.

Our team grew as we expanded to better and more completely serve our community. Our Advisory Council, DUG’s trusted, nationally-recognized advisors provided guidance on issues critical to DUG’s current activities and strategic evolution. 

I had the good fortune to end the year with a trip to Australia where I keynoted the Urban Agriculture Forum. It was an experience of a lifetime—loads of learning and even more shared experiences. Read about my adventure here. 

Thank you for your interest and support of Denver Urban Gardens. We couldn’t do any of it without you – our community.

Launched to unite, uplift, and activate the community garden movement across the US and the world.

Goals of the Urban Garden Project:

1. Establish community gardens and food forests as “must haves” instead of “nice to haves” in the eyes of city planners.
2. Unite, strengthen, and activate the national and global gardening community in thought partnership and advocacy.
3. Provide tools and resources to help community garden organizations strengthen their operations.

Keynoted the Australia Urban Agriculture Forum November 2024

Adult and Youth Education

• 734 workshop and class attendees 
• ⅓ of attendee fees were covered through our pay-what-you-can model
• Taught in 12 Early Childhood Education (ECE) classrooms 
• Partnerships with Slow Food Denver and We Don’t Waste for our new Seed to Plate to Regenerate program

Community Composter Training Program

• Attended by over 500 community members in addition to 300 DUG gardeners all across the Front Range

Grow a Garden 

• 12,152 community members served
• 71% of recipient households have a combined income of less than $50,000
• Distributed 1,901 kits including 9,554 seed packets and 17,109 plants that will produce 78,402.25 projected pounds of food

Culturally Inclusive Seeds

• 44 varieties provided
• 490 specialty seed varieties distributed to DUG gardeners

Community Seed Distribution 

• 27,000+ seed packets distributed, equivalent to 300+ pounds of seeds and 10,000,000 individual seeds 

• Expand our Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (BII) program
• Support the establishment of community gardens and food forests in Denver’s West Area with support from our $500,000 EPA grant
• Launching the Food Forestry Training Program
• Add new community-led workshops including organic gardening and herbalism