Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (BII)

Program Overview

The Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (or BII) is a holistic program centered on establishing and increasing equity across DUG’s network of community gardens. This program is open to public DUG community gardens and qualifying gardens may change from year to year based on need and resource availability. The BII encompasses 4 core areas– Activation, Infrastructure, Financial, and Supplies – to ensure that all of our gardens are resourced at an equitable level to support thriving community gardens producing optimum yields for their needs. This program prioritizes gardens with improvements around garden safety, security, food production, gathering space and accessibility.

Activation

Leadership Support + Education
Gardener Activation
Translation + Interpretation Support
On-site Application Support
DUG Presence at Garden Meetings

Infrastructure

Share Structures
Plot Borders
Tool Storage
Pathways

Financial

Essential Needs Support (including water bills)
Gardening Fund Support

Supplies

Compost
Seeds + Seedlings
Straw Mulch

Eligibility Requirement for Supplies:

DUG prioritizes supporting community gardens within our network with a demonstrated resource need. We reference the USDA Economic Research Service’s resource for Low Income and Low Access (LILA) populations to support our expanding efforts. You can view a map overlay of LILA neighborhoods and DUG’s network of community gardens here!

As of February 2024, 1/2 of DUG’s open to the public community gardens (or 68 gardens) are supporting by BII.

What BII Success Looks Like:

All garden plots are fully utilized.

To achieve this outcome, DUG will provide translation or interpretation support for plot applications to overcome language and technology barriers, develop and distribute multilingual resources for DUG mentorship and educational programming, recruit representational leadership at all gardens, and provide support for community-building events.

All gardens meet a baseline physical infrastructure standard.

This entails completing regular repairs and improvements to at-need gardens, including providing water access, shade structures, and tool storage. This also looks like delivering resources like compost, seeds, and seedlings, regardless of a garden’s ability to pay.

IMG_1540-scaled (1) - Denver Urban Gardens

History & Impact

In 2020, DUG sought feedback from more than 500 stakeholders in order to gain insight into what our community members needed from DUG. The feedback had a common theme: community gardeners and Garden Leaders wanted and needed more of DUG. Our gardeners asked for more support, education, leadership training, community building, and to ensure equity across the network. In response, in 2021 DUG launched our new Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (BII).

3,000

Food-Bearing Plants Given

68

Community Gardens Involved

$200,000

Annual Funds

14,262

Community Members Served

Adopt a Garden to Support BII

Learn More