Digging in: Lessons from the garden
PCJ in the Bay Fellow Stories: Stella Tinker
Valley Verde began with Raul's memory of his father, always tending to their backyard garden to feed his family through the uncertainties of poverty. Years later, during the 2007 economic crash, Raul saw food banks overwhelmed and families struggling to access healthy, culturally relevant food. Valley Verde was his response, founded in 2008 to teach his neighbors how to grow their own gardens.
Since then, Valley Verde has been striving to build food sovereignty: a future where every family has access to organic gardens, shares harvests with their neighbors, and no longer depends solely on food systems that too often fail to meet their needs. That sense of community-built resilience is at the heart of Valley Verde.
As a sophomore majoring in urban studies, I started my internship with this San José based nonprofit hoping to learn more about the urban areas around me and the challenges faced by the people who live there. What I left with was so much more: real relationships, a place in a new community, and a deep sense of the power nonprofits hold to create webs of support in the gaps left by unjust systems.
Every day, I watched my colleagues strengthen this web. They were on the ground supporting the food-insecure community members who came to us seeking resources. As they did this, they showed remarkable adaptability and commitment to accommodating diverse needs. This manifested in many ways—from testing apartment friendly vertical gardens, to constructing an accessible garden bed for a wheelchair user. They also demonstrated constant engagement in long-term thinking: developing guidelines for safe gardening during extreme heat, conducting community needs assessments to better align programs with needs, and adapting funding strategies to remain resilient in changing times.
They did their work not just with ingenuity but with a deep sense of care. One coworker in particular stood out to me, with compassion that shaped the space in powerful ways. She always went above and beyond, thinking about activities for kids, planning small gifts to appreciate volunteers, and making Brazilian tea to share with staff and program participants. Her presence reminded me that care is made of many acts that can seem invisible, and yet loom so large in people's lives and the warmth of a community.
As I learned from my colleagues, I was also given the chance to exercise these lessons in my own projects—practicing adapting to a rapidly changing environment, accommodating diverse needs, and bringing care and kindness to the center of each decision. One of my projects was revamping Valley Verde’s volunteer systems to help connect it even more with its community.
One experience that sticks out was organizing a large group of volunteers with my fellow intern Ashley. We couldn’t help but chuckle as we watched students who were not thrilled by the smell of the compost they were sifting. But their teacher gave out some tough love, encouraging them to stick it out through their discomfort. As they got their hands dirty, they started to warm up to it, working diligently despite the occasional snide remarks and wrinkled noses. It was exciting to watch them engage with new experiences and reconnect with the natural processes of growth and nourishment that are hidden away in today’s industrial food system.
My other project was organizing an art gathering, inviting artists whose work focuses on gardens or agriculture to display their work. Behind the scenes, this involved managing countless spreadsheets, addressing numerous questions and challenges, and handling a steady flow of emails. I learned how difficult it can be to reach people and build relationships, especially when you are new to a community. But through these frustrations, I came to value more highly the gravity of a single relationship. It helped me understand that nonprofit work isn’t centered on big wins, but on the small sparks that combine to build lasting impact. Community doesn’t come from convenience; it comes from commitment.
At the event, it was so fulfilling to watch weeks of hard work come to life. One especially exciting moment was watching volunteers create a mural during the event, each brushstroke representing someone’s time, energy, and belief in Valley Verde’s work. Another joyful moment came when an artist shared that it wasn’t until this event that she truly began to see herself as a “local artist.” Without this artist’s support, I wouldn’t have gained the same confidence and pride in my own ability to bring people together. It’s these kinds of realizations, relationships, and feelings of pride in ourselves that grow when we commit to building things together.
Through my time at Valley Verde, I found myself deeply connected to San Jose and to a community of colleagues, volunteers, and artists who came together in the belief that growing food is a way to reclaim our power, nourish our families, and reconnect with the earth and each other. Day in and day out, I watched those around me dig into inequities without hesitation, refusing to accept systems that leave people behind and creating brighter futures. This is the generative power of service: fueled by perseverance, adaptation, and care. Such service is capable of reshaping communities, one innovation, one victory, and one relationship at a time.
Stella Tinker is a sophomore and plans to major in urban studies. Passionate about addressing environmental injustice in urban communities, Stella is dedicated to creating equitable solutions in food systems. This summer, she was a Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area (PCJ in the Bay) Fellow with Valley Verde, a San Jose-based nonprofit that promotes food sovereignty through healthy eating initiatives, expanded food access, and micro-entrepreneurship training.
