Our Story
The Ohana Kuleana Community Garden opened its first season in 2013. OK offers both community members and pupils from adjacent Riverview School opportunities to connect with nature, grow their own organic food, and reap the bounty of a perennial food forest from a berm bursting with fruit-bearing trees and shrubs.
Throughout the growing season, OK offers a wide range of educational workshops and hosts weekly workdays to help maintain OK's herb plot, garlic patch and memorial flower garden. One-on-one mentoring matches new gardeners with experienced ones so even novices can enjoy successful production of organic greens and other vegetables. Nothing goes to waste. Weeds and other green debris are stacked on site and over the course of time regenerate into rich compost to fertilize gardeners’ plots, and help their gardens grow. Worm-composting bins, barrels full of rainfall harvest along with a full irrigation system enable gardeners to grow produce successfully even in our sometimes harsh high-altitude climate. A shelter and small amphitheater on site provide opportunities for small gatherings and learning sessions to help build a sense of community and foster greater organic farming know-how.
Garden Committees
GROWTH COMMITTEE Integrating Vision and Operations
Sets meetings and agenda
Leads meetings
Writes minutes
Maintains guidelines, records and documents
Brings suggestions and requests forward
Communication - gardeners and committees
MEMBERSHIP
Cultivating Community Gardeners
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Connecting with Community
MAINTENANCE
Overseeing Physical
Infrastructure
FINANCE
Overseeing Finances
MENTORING
Gardening Support and Education
Manage registration: track memberships, work hours, and waiting list
Plan potlucks
Communicate and reach out
Mediate w/ gardeners
Follow up w/ volunteer
requirements
Field phone/email inquires and feedback.
Plan social events
Mediate w/ neighbors and community
Manage formal donations
Plan outreach events
Develop partnerships
Check weed control
Oversee vermiculture
and compost-making
Organize workdays
Maintain irrigation system, tools, signage, fences, paths, gates
Track produce weights: print logs, enter on spreadsheet, encourage participation
Moniter these areas: GREEN BINS, BROWN STUFF, BIG STUFF, Fall leaf drop off
Garden Committees
Sets meetings and agenda
Leads meetings
Writes minutes
Maintains guidelines, records and documents
Brings suggestions and requests forward
Communicates with gardeners and
committees
GROWTH COMMITTEE Integrating Vision and Operations
MEMBERSHIP
Cultivating Community Gardeners
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Connecting with Community
MAINTENANCE
Overseeing Physical
Infrastructure
FINANCE
Overseeing Finances
MENTORING
Providing Support and Education
Manage registration: track memberships, work hours, and waiting list
Plan potlucks
Communicate and reach out
Mediate w/ gardeners
Follow up w/ volunteer
requirements
Field phone/email inquires and feedback.
Plan social events
Mediate w/ neighbors and community
Manage formal donations
Plan outreach events
Develop partnerships
Check weed control
Oversee vermiculture
and compost-making
Organize workdays
Maintain irrigation system, tools, signage, fences, paths, gates
Track produce weights: print logs, enter on spreadsheet, encourage participation
Moniter these areas: GREEN BINS, BROWN STUFF, BIG STUFF, Fall leaf drop off
Fundraise w/ Community Outreach
Collect plot fees/pay bills
Facilitate expense reimbursement process
Maintain financial records
Prepare monthly finance reports
Determine gardener's needs/ideas/strengths
Train/advise/
demonstrate/
coordinate/plan classes
Coordinate workshops/days: identify tasks; designate leaders, build community
Organize berm teaming
Educate gardeners
History
Ohana Kuleana Community Garden broke ground in 2013. It sits on a slice of land over an acre in size below the rim of Riverview Elementary School at the intersection of East 30th Street and East 6th Avenue, Durango. OK has 45 garden parcels: six of them are cultivated by schoolchildren under the guidance of their science teacher; the rest are assigned to community members who pay annual plot fees to help underwrite OK garden expenses.
The OK garden is part of a much larger parcel of land acquired by La Plata County from a private party back in 1939, and then deeded to the 9R School District in 1955 with a deed restriction that said the land was to be used for “playgrounds and public recreation.”
Apparently unaware of the proscription against development of the property, the school district subdivided the property into lots for homes to be built by students in the Building Trades program then operating at Durango High School from 1974 to 1985. Several homes along Riverview Drive were built before the deed restriction came to light.
For the homes that were already built, the county permitted the sales to proceed, but in a 1982 letter from county attorney David Dickinson, the county said “it is firm in its opinion that the remainder of the property should be retained for the uses originally contemplated.”
Regardless, while the rest of the parcel was not developed, the plat lines for three single-family lots remain on the books, and in 2001 a non-profit development group eyed the property for multi-family affordable housing. Eventually, in 2002, the school district conceded it had not conformed to the requirements of the deed restriction, and deeded the property back to the county. The county then tried to sell the property a couple of times without success.
Neighbors and others aware of the history of the parcel, and the recreational uses for which it was intended, suggested the parcel be used for a community garden. Eventually, former County Commissioner Bob Lieb leased the property from the county to develop it into a community garden with an option to purchase at the end of 10 years. The purchase option expired Dec. 31, 2020; Bob exercised his option and now owns the property outright.
