On October 8th, The Growing Project turns 3! The milestone may be small, but for us, its been a huge accomplishment. Thanks to the successful backyard gardens that sprouted up, as well as the thousands of pounds of produce that we’ve donated to the Food Bank, foster families, and transitional homes for homeless people, we’ve made a name for ourselves so that community members are wanting to be connected to our services.

The daily grind and creativity it takes to continue a growing and changing non-profit is both inspiring and humbling to witness.  With a steep learning curve for both our board and gardeners, things don’t always turn out as planned! Sometimes the gardens don’t grow at our pace, and the orchard still needs to mature to produce good fruit; or maybe the fundraising events don’t always match our goals. But with our dedicated board and volunteers, we’ve been blessed in so many ways. The Growing Project continues to move forward, expanding its overall abundance of both food and spirit.  

The question is often asked, in various ways, “What is your dream for the future” or “Where do you see yourself in 5 years”.  To begin to answer, we can’t really reflect on where we want to go without first looking back on where we have been.  Each year has been succinctly different, with new programs and opportunities expanding faster than we can keep up with.  

1st year: The Abyss of Pain!: Logistics, red tape, 501(c)3 application, paperwork, etc...
2nd year: Finding a Home! : Plant our garden here, move our garden there, you get the picture...
3rd year: UFO’s land throughout Fort Collins! : We expand our host garden program,  creating an official application process which includes a wait list since our popularity has soared...and, we find ourselves still looking for permanent land that we can call home...a place we don’t have to leave. Got land? :-)  

So, we made it through year 3 and doesn’t it seem like this year flew by!? Blink. It’s already time to begin discussions and preparations for year 2012--and to begin life, or what we hope is a life that we have been working towards.  While it is easy to point out missed goals, time wasted, and many other disappointments, it is also JUST as easy to see the beauty, the blessings, the gifts, and the miracles we’ve experienced this year and that we see in our future.  So if you find yourself at the choosing, choose year 4!  It answers the question of where we see ourselves heading as we move towards our vision for what’s to come.  

For us here at The Growing Project, we have created a heavenly space in many gardens that has added to the abundance of our community. . .so, see you in the garden, whenever and wherever that may be...