Founders Story
Katrina Aschenbrenner, one of the founders of the Noyo Food Forest, graduated from Mendocino High School. She moved away, started a family and then, she came back.
“We found a home in Fort Bragg with an overgrown cottage, garden full of fruit and nut trees, and untamed perennials. It was bliss; I tended the garden with my all.
In the Fall of 2005, I met two inspired women, Kim Morgan and Susan Lightfoot. Friends from college, Kim and Susan met in 1997 on the East Coast, moved to Humboldt County, took a community agriculture class, and started backyard gardening. The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina’s devastation on the Gulf Coast and the closing of the Mill site here in Fort Bragg brought home the urgent need for a more balanced, healthier ecosystem in our community. The three of us realized that the most healing thing we could do for ourselves and our environment was to grow food, “cuz everybody’s gotta eat!” It made complete sense. The Noyo Food Forest was born. Our vision was simple: Food growing everywhere and people eating it.
We investigated every empty lot we could find. Behind Fort Bragg High School, the school district offered us an overgrown field with a dilapidated hoop house, and so in Spring 2006, we planted our first garden – The Learning Garden. The community embraced this inspirational cause with open arms and hearts. Volunteers came together from all walks of life to dig, dream and heal. It was paradise; with organic herbs, flowers, vegetables and fruit trees. An education program grew at the Learning Garden and a Farm-to-School program in association with the Fort Bragg Unified School District. Produce from the Learning Garden began filling the high school students’ lunch trays with vibrant, colorful, alive food.
We soon looked to fulfill our original inspiration, to build a community garden where people would come together to grow organic food for their families, the Food Bank, and the Hospitality House. Thanksgiving Coffee Company contacted us and offered us land at the mouth of the Noyo River. Ukiah Natural Foods Coop gifted us a grant and in the spring of 2008, we installed the Noyo Come-Unity Garden. Surrounded by nature, it has a practical shed, a tall fence to keep the deer out, a small greenhouse, and hose bibs at every bed to allow individual gardeners to install timed drip in their rented plots; all built by volunteers. Many donations of materials were given to us by local businesses. All of the plots are rented and half of the gardeners live within walking or bike riding distance.
Since the conception of the Learning Garden and Noyo Come-Unity Garden, we have installed and invigorated many more gardens in collaboration with local organizations and individuals:
In the fall of 2008, The Head Start Family Garden and Grow the Good Garden at Fort Bragg Middle School,
In the winter of 2009, The Grey Whale Inn Garden,
In the spring of 2010, The Redwood Coast Senior Center Kitchen Garden,
In the fall of 2010, The Stone Soup Garden at Safe Passage Family Resource Center,
and in the Spring 2011, The Noyo High School Garden.
As our gardens grow, our vision grows too. We imagine educating our community in sustainability, creating and inspiring more gardens everywhere, improving the health and happiness of our citizens, and the co-mingling of all people on common fertile ground.”
