The Shared World Project
All programs

Program

Community Gardens

Fresh food where it is hardest to find.

Bringing fresh food to urban food deserts.

Pilot

First garden sites in scouting

Owned

Long-term ownership stays with the neighborhood

Closed-loop

Soil fed by Second Life Collective compost

Founding service area

Austin, TX / San Antonio, TX / Houston, TX

What we need to start the project

Launch needs come first.

A first community garden in each of our three Texas cities needs site access, lumber and soil, irrigation, tools, fencing, and storage.

Estimated seed budget

$15K to $30K per garden install

Service area: Austin, TX / San Antonio, TX / Houston, TX

  • 01

    Site access

    • Lot leases or LOIs from city / property owners in Austin, San Antonio, Houston
    • Water-access permission (hose bib or service connection)
    • Fencing materials (chain-link or wood, depending on neighborhood)
    • Pedestrian gate hardware
    • Shade structure or pavilion materials
  • 02

    Beds, soil & irrigation

    • Cedar or composite raised-bed lumber (multiple 4x8 beds per garden)
    • Hardware cloth (gopher and ground-pest control)
    • Soil mix (yards of garden soil per bed, or compost from Second Life Collective once running)
    • Drip irrigation kits, timers, manifolds
    • Rainwater catchment system (tank, gutters, first-flush diverter)
    • Mulch, wood chips, straw
  • 03

    Storage & tools

    • Storage shed (8x10 minimum)
    • Hand-tool sets: shovels, hoes, rakes, trowels (one set per garden plus volunteer kits)
    • Wheelbarrows and hose carts
    • Compost bins for garden-level composting
    • Seedlings, seed inventory
    • Bilingual (English / Spanish) signage and outreach materials
  • 04

    Operations

    • Volunteer accident insurance covering garden-day events
    • First-aid kits for each site
    • Garden-lead stipend program
    • Outreach print materials in English and Spanish
    • Photo / video documentation budget

In-kind donations

Useful goods can launch real work.

These items are especially helpful if they are sitting unused and still in working condition.

  • Vacant or underused lots near food-desert neighborhoods in Austin, San Antonio, Houston
  • Lumber for raised beds (cedar / pine 4x4 and 2x8)
  • Bulk soil, mulch, and compost (or compost partnership)
  • Storage sheds (any size)
  • Hand tools and wheelbarrows
  • Drip irrigation supplies

About this program

Fresh food where it is hardest to find.

Bringing fresh food to urban food deserts.

  • Site identification

    Vacant lots, schoolyards, church grounds, and underused parcels, turned into productive growing space.

  • Beds + irrigation + soil

    Raised beds, soil remediation where needed, and right-sized irrigation, built with volunteer crews.

  • Stewardship handoff

    Training so neighbors run their own garden. The work is theirs, not ours.

Fresh food where it's hardest to find.

Across the United States, millions of people live in food deserts: neighborhoods where the nearest grocery store is miles away, and where what's nearby is mostly processed. Community Gardens plants food, training, and ownership directly in those neighborhoods.

What we do on the ground

  • Site identification and prep: vacant lots, schoolyards, church grounds, and underused parcels.
  • Raised beds, soil remediation, and irrigation built with volunteer crews.
  • Seasonal planting and growing support so the garden is productive from year one.
  • Compost integration with our Second Life Collective program, closing the loop on neighborhood organic waste.
  • Training so neighbors run their own garden, not us.

Who decides what's grown

The neighborhood. Always. We bring the structure, materials, and starter knowledge. The people who live around the garden decide what goes in the ground and what happens to the harvest.

Get involved

Community gardens take build days, growing days, and care days. There is a place for every kind of help. Local schools, churches, and youth groups are some of our strongest partners.

Current focus

What is underway right now.

  • Site selection

    First neighborhood build

    Houston, TX (lead pilot)

    Our inaugural community garden build, partnering with a local lead organizer to choose the site.

  • Open call

    School-grounds program

    Open call for K-12 partners

    A package for schools to install a teaching garden integrated with our Education & Training program.

A garden in a food desert is not charity. It is a neighborhood deciding what its block tastes like.

Working principle, Community Gardens program