Ep 24 - How St. Arbor Community Garden Is Feeding Hungry Families in North Texas
🌐 Website: www.starborcdc.org
By Sherry Sutton | Heart of the Hustle Show · North Texas Nonprofit Spotlight
We tend to picture Frisco and Little Elm as some of the most comfortable corners of North Texas. Big houses, nice cars, manicured everything. But comfort on the surface has a way of hiding what is happening underneath, and St. Arbor Community Garden exists because of what is happening underneath.
This week on Heart of the Hustle I got to sit down with Michelle Hambrick, who has been part of St. Arbor since the very first meeting back in 2019. We have known each other a long time, and I just went to their gala a couple of weeks ago, so I came into this conversation already a little bit obsessed with what they are doing. By the time we finished talking, I was fully sold. Here is why this acre and a half deserves your attention.
The Hunger Hiding Behind a Wealthy Zip Code
The thing about an affluent area is that it makes people assume nobody around them needs help. Michelle put it in a way I have not stopped thinking about since.
"A lot of what they see around them is window dressing. It looks good from the outside, but they're starving people on the inside."
-Michelle Hambrick, St. Arbor Community Garden
Here is the number that reframes everything. Roughly 40 percent of people in the area are food insecure. Forty percent. That is not a far-away statistic, that is neighbors. There are resources already doing good work, like the local food bank and Love Packs, but as Michelle pointed out, most of what those families receive comes out of a can or a box. St. Arbor exists to fill in the part of the plate that is almost always missing, which is fresh, nutritious, organic produce.
What Is St. Arbor Community Garden?
St. Arbor is an acre-and-a-half community garden sitting right on the border between Frisco and Little Elm. It has been around since 2019, and its purpose has never wavered. It exists to feed people who are hungry. Not to look pretty, not to win awards, but to grow real food and get it to real families who need it.
40%
of people in the area are food insecure
1.5
acres of community garden
2019
growing for the community ever since
From a Dinner-Table "Wouldn't It Be Nice" to an Acre and a Half
I love an origin story, and this one is a good one. The way it was told to Michelle, the visionary founder is Pastor James Hutchins. He was having dinner with a friend and casually said one of those "wouldn't it be nice if" things that most of us let float off into the night. Except his friend happened to be a project manager, and she answered with five words that changed everything. "I can help you make that happen."
That same project manager remembered Michelle from a networking event two years earlier, in this very building we were recording in, when it went by a different name. She called Michelle up and said she needed someone who knew a lot of people in Little Elm. When Michelle protested that she knew nothing about gardening, the answer was simple. You do not need to know anything about gardening. You just need to help spread the word. That is the whole lesson right there. The mission needed a connector more than it needed an expert, and Michelle has been spreading the word since the first meeting in November 2019.
What Does St. Arbor Grow? (Hint: A Little Bit of Everything)
When I asked what they grow, Michelle basically listed off a farmers market. Melons, Chinese long beans, squash, cucumbers, radishes, beets, and on and on. Her line was that they have probably tried to grow just about everything out there. It all rotates with the season, because you cannot grow spinach in the middle of a Texas summer without watching it give up entirely.
Right now okra is thriving, which is the kind of vegetable that loves the brutal sun the rest of us are hiding from. We had a fun little tangent about whether okra is technically a fruit, since it has seeds, and about fried okra being a Texas delicacy I had genuinely never heard of before I moved here. The point underneath the fun is that this garden gives families variety and freshness they would almost never get from emergency food assistance alone.
The greenhouse most people never see
Here is the part that made my jaw drop. Tucked in the very back of the property is an aquaponics and hydroponics greenhouse where nothing grows in soil at all. Everything is grown in water, fed by nitrogen from fish. It is a closed little ecosystem doing serious work, and it is exactly the kind of thing you would never guess was sitting behind an unassuming garden in Little Elm.
How the Food Actually Gets to Families Who Need It
A garden is only as good as its distribution, and St. Arbor has built real partnerships to move the harvest. They work with the Little Elm Area Food Bank and with Love Packs, and on harvest days they either deliver the produce or those partners come pick it up to distribute from their own locations.
It is also not unusual for neighbors who know about the garden to show up with their own bags and ask if they can take some things home, and the answer is always yes. On top of that, the Little Elm Rotary Club made food insecurity one of its platforms this year and funded a tiny food pantry on site. That means even when nobody is at the garden, people can still grab dry goods, and when the team is there, they top it off with fresh vegetables. That is the whole plate coming together.
The Numbers: Thousands of Pounds of Fresh Food a Year
So how much food does an acre and a half actually produce? Last year St. Arbor grew somewhere between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds of fresh vegetables. This year they were aiming for 5,000 pounds before a setback got in the way, and the long game is bigger still. They have been told a garden this size can yield up to 10,000 pounds a year, and that is the target they are building toward.
Who keeps it running
There is one part-time gardener on site Mondays and Wednesdays, but volunteers show up all week long. There is a big whiteboard with the day's tasks written out, so if you can read it, you can help with it. Some days that work is genuinely fun, and some days it is weeding and cleaning in the Texas heat, which Michelle was refreshingly honest about. It is all necessary to keep everything growing and thriving, and that honesty is exactly why I trust what they are building.
"Get your hands dirty, make a difference. That's what we love to say."
Michelle Hambrick, St. Arbor Community GardenHow You Can Support St. Arbor Community Garden
If this is hitting you the way it hit me, here are the real ways to show up for them. Pick the one that fits your life right now and just do that one thing.
Follow and share
St. Arbor Community Garden is on Facebook and Instagram, with TikTok on the way so they can show people how this all works and how much fun the garden actually is. Following and sharing costs you nothing and genuinely extends their reach, which is the entire job Michelle was recruited to do in the first place.
Donate directly
You can make a one-time or recurring donation through their website any time. If you want your dollars to stretch further, North Texas Giving Day lands in September and those donations get matched, so waiting until then is a smart play if a date on the calendar helps you follow through.
Come to the Garden to Table Gala
Their one and only fundraiser of the year is the annual Garden to Table Gala, held the last Saturday in June. I was there, I had a great time, and yes, I am the person who walked out into the actual garden in a full gown while everyone else stayed inside in their fancy clothes. Vanessa, their gardener, offered tours, and I was the one human who took her up on it. No regrets.
Get your hands dirty
If you want to volunteer, there is a sign-up link right on the website with the days and times they need help and a list of what you might be doing out there. You go through a short training first, and the team works hard to make getting started easy. Planting, weeding, harvesting, all of it counts.
Support St. Arbor Community Garden
Follow them, donate, or sign up to volunteer. Every bag of fresh produce starts with someone deciding to show up.
Get involved todayFrequently Asked Questions
-
St. Arbor is an acre-and-a-half community garden located on the border of Frisco and Little Elm, Texas. Founded in 2019, its sole purpose is to feed people who are hungry by growing fresh, nutritious, organic vegetables and getting them to food insecure families in the community.
-
Yes. About 40 percent of people in the area are food insecure. The wealth you see is often window dressing. St. Arbor exists to fill the gap with fresh produce, since most food assistance in the area comes out of a can or a box rather than from fresh, organic vegetables.
-
Last year the garden produced between 2,500 and 3,000 pounds of fresh vegetables. A garden of this size can yield up to 10,000 pounds a year, and that is the long-term goal the team is building toward.
-
You can follow St. Arbor Community Garden on social media, make a one-time or recurring donation through the website, give during North Texas Giving Day in September when donations are matched, attend the annual Garden to Table Gala held the last Saturday in June, or sign up to volunteer through the link on the website.
-
Yes. There is a volunteer sign-up link on the St. Arbor website with available days, times, and a list of the tasks you might do, from planting to weeding to harvesting. Volunteers go through a short training first, and the team works hard to make getting started easy.
About Heart of the Hustle
One conversation. A month of content.
Heart of the Hustle is where entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and changemakers share the stories behind their impact. Join me in the studio and walk away with professionally produced content, social assets, and a platform to share your story with the world.
