By Lisa Rogers | Executive Director
It was a long hot summer in Denver with a short harvest season. Sometimes things just go that way. We plan for the best, prepare for the worst, and take what comes with gratitude. Our Feed Denver community steward farmers model this. They live lives of challenge and have experienced some pretty bad times but they have learned to be scrappy, helpful, and hopeful.
They are an inspiration to me when I get despondent. Dilli and Nahrmaya are a 46 year old couple relocated here from a refugee camp in Nepal. Due to political wrangling they – and their entire community – were made to leave their home in Bhutan but they had nowhere to go. They tried Nepal but were sent away so they went to India. India didn’t want them and trucked them back to Nepal…by the thousands. After 20 years the UN decided to relocate them around the world. It was our blessing to get Dilli and Nahrmaya…and Iccha, Hima, Chuda, Abi, Shiva, Dahdi, Beda, Krishna, and Hari.
Every day Dilli welcomes me to the farm with the latest English greeting he’s learned. Nahrmaya smiles wide and sometimes hugs us. Farming, even through our small program, reconnects them to what they know. They meet neighbors to our farms and wave. Often visitors speak Spanish to them which makes them smile. Dilli and Nahrmaya want to farm. They want to use the skills they’ve developed their whole lives, even in refugee camps, not only to supplement their diets but to create livelihoods. That’s why we do what we do at Feed Denver.
When the struggles of building up our nascent urban farming education program weigh me down, when the fundraising challenges seem so vast, I go to the farm and weed or water or harvest next to our inspiring farmers. The season is over now although our work is not as we develop our winter projects and gear our attention to end of year fundraising campaigns. Please keep us in mind and support our program when you consider the programs you will support your donations.
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