WHO WE ARE
PLANTS - POWER - PEOPLE
OUR MISSION:
To grow greatness, empower others, build community, and connect with the earth.
OUR VISION
To create a community in which all people have access to nutritional food in an environment that is conducive to growth, health, and prosperity.
OUR GOAL
To empower socioeconomically disadvantaged populations and strengthen communities by providing career opportunities in regenerative agriculture, food sovereignty and land conservation.
WHAT WE DO
Garden 31 is committed to fostering food equity across San Diego County by empowering individuals through regenerative agriculture and community health initiatives.
Our farming education and career apprenticeship programs primarily serve marginalized communities, opportunity youth, formerly incarcerated, and justice-impacted individuals. Participants often face challenges such as economic hardship, limited educational opportunities, restricted access to healthcare, inadequate housing, and food insecurity. Our programs aim to transform these circumstances by providing access to healthy food, career opportunities in the agriculture industry, and community training through workshops and mentorship.
We are dedicated to teaching ecological regeneration through biodiversity and organic practices. Our expertise encompasses composting, landscaping, garden bed construction, nutritional education, and character cultivation. By equipping community members with these skills, we empower them to create sustainable food systems that enhance overall community health.
Our Programs and Services Include:
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Farmer and Rancher Training Apprenticeship (G.R.O.W.E.R. Program)
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Agriculture Career Pathway Education
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Corrections-to-Workforce Job Creation Partnerships
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Detention Facility Garden and Education Programs
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School Garden Development (San Diego County)
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K-12 STEM Garden Education & Curriculum Partnerships
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Community Garden Creation
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Community Education Workshops
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Food Distribution
Garden 31 has built intentional relationships with underserved communities, collaborating with agricultural, educational, and social service organizations to strengthen community resiliency and local agriculture in San Diego. Our partnerships include farming cooperatives, nonprofits, transitional high schools, detention facilities, and higher education institutions, all aimed at maximizing our collective impact.
WHERE WE SPROUTED
Garden 31 was founded by Chris Burroughs in 2021. As a master composter, community service worker, and environmental sustainability expert who, like many others from underserved neighborhoods, was confronted by addiction and gang culture at a very young age. Chris spent much of his youth in and out of juvenile hall and later served 14 years in prison, 90 days of which in solitary confinement.
While incarcerated, Chris came across a gardening magazine and sparked his passion for learning about how to sustainably grow ones own food. Burroughs spent the next five months in prison writing the business plan for Garden 31.
"I got a Mother Earth News magazine. It just opened up a world of nature, a different type of living."
"All you have to do with nature is expose someone to it, and they'll receive the bounty that nature will give them."
With more than 2 million people in the nation's prisons and jails, the U.S. leads the world in incarceration. About one-third of people released from prison will return at some point in their lives. Chris knows that he didn't have the resources he needed as a young man — he now wants to give at-risk young people something tangible: an education, a career, a community, and a foundation to work towards owning a home, taking care of family, you can be proud of what you do.
After prison, Burroughs studied sustainable agriculture and environmental sustainability. This catalyzed Chris' desire to develop a new two-year organic farming apprenticeship for the formerly incarcerated. Raising funding for the effort, he now wants to create a 25-acre farm with housing. Apprentices would work on the farm and attend classes at nearby community colleges.
"Let's take our power, let's use what we have. We are the valuable resources. We are the power. We can do whatever we want to do."
Through his deep community roots and a dream to generate holistic community health, Chris and his team have a vision of building ga oal-oriented curriculum and career training for disadvantaged community members and youth all over the country — with your support, that vision can become a reality!
OUR CULTURE
Garden 31 is an environmental and social justice nonprofit that works to create jobs and a more equitable food system.
We are dedicated to equip disadvantaged community members with the skills needed to create
Garden 31 is staffed with passionate environmentalists, agriculture experts, and educators that are capable of developing and implementing viable and resourceful learning programs for students of all ages.
We work to create a safe space for the underserved and under-resourced communities in our society. It's paramount to our mission that we empower individuals to cultivate their own self-sustainability free from injustice and oppression:
WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING | DETERRENTS TO SELF-SUSTAINABILITY
Marginalization
When a person or group that is treated insignificantly, pushed to the margins of society and rendered powerless.
Economic inequality
The unequal distribution of income and opportunity between different groups in society. Often people are trapped in poverty with little chance to climb up the social ladder.
Discrimination
When systems and policies, actions and attitudes create inequitable opportunities and outcomes for people based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, etc.
FEAR OF Violence
When members of marginalized groups must live with the fear of violence. Violence directed against oppressed groups disables and impoverishes them, while enriching or empowering the oppressor or the indirectly privileged.
Institutional injustice
Not being believed because of social status and personal backgrounds; not being heard where narratives did not align with dominant discourses, and not being acknowledged where aspects of identity were disregarded.
recidivism
The act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.