Both People and Plants Are Thriving at This Santa Cruz Garden

Eater

a day ago

Darrie Ganzhorn was just eight years old when she realized the world was unfair, and most people weren't doing anything to change it. Now, at 67, she's been named a 2025 Small Business Hero by Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp.
Raised in Baltimore, Ganzhorn attended a private Catholic school in a wealthy neighborhood. There, she saw firsthand the disparity between those who were privileged and those less fortunate. 'I was raised with the whole idea of treating others how you want to be treated. And it seemed like there was a real disconnect between what people were saying and what they were doing. That really bothered me.'
Decades later, Ganzhorn was living on the West Coast, and discovered a way to be one of the people doing something about inequity. The Berkeley grad was interning at the Resource Center for Nonviolence when she heard about a nonprofit called the Homeless Garden Project.
She started volunteering at the project in 1991 — today Ganzhorn is the executive director. At the pioneering Santa Cruz non-profit, unhoused people create new lives through job training, transitional employment, and support services at Natural Bridges Farm. There, they grow seasonal produce like strawberries, kale, and pumpkins, then sell them at a retail store stocked with artisanal products like lavender soap, herbal sleep tea, and beeswax candles.
Homeless Garden Project was awarded a $20,000 grant and named a 2025 Small Business Hero by Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp because of the profound positive impact it has had on its community.
The award was granted to the Homeless Garden Project this May as part of a new grant program that recognizes small businesses who go above and beyond for their communities, the Intuit QuickBooks and Mailchimp Small Business Hero Program. Through this program, the public can nominate small businesses in their own communities to win a grant and additional business resources, with a new group of inspiring businesses awarded on a quarterly basis.
Santa Cruz has a history of activism. In the mid-eighties, a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, Paul Lee, was inspired by a group of people who went on a hunger strike to protest the fact that there was no homeless shelter in Santa Cruz.
The strike spurred Lee to team up with a group of friends and ministers to form the Citizens Committee for the Homeless, now known as Housing Matters — and open the county's first homeless shelter in 1985. In 1990, when a friend closed their herb nursery and offered Lee hundreds of free baby plants, he knew it was time to start a garden for the homeless. Alongside his friend Lynne Basehore Cooper, a local restaurateur, he launched the Pelton Avenue garden. In 1991, they expanded to a site near Natural Bridges State Beach, which is now the main site for the Homeless Garden Project.
Today, Ganzhorn says the nonprofit focuses on providing real work experience. Trainees spend a year strengthening applicable skills like communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, professionalism, and time management. Check-ins with their manager and weekly meetings with a social worker ensure that they're making progress on their personal goals.
Over the past 10 years, Ganzhorn says 88 percent of trainees have found housing, no small feat in Santa Cruz, which has a cost of living that's 80.6 percent higher than the national average. After their year of training, 95 percent of graduates have secured steady jobs. 'They felt a lot of gratitude for how their lives had been transformed,' Ganzhorn says. 'I've heard some of our trainees say, 'As the plants are growing, I'm also growing.''
Ganzhorn recently ran into a former trainee who's thriving and working at Housing Matters, a nonprofit providing shelter services. 'He got a second job working as a roadie kind of, doing sound and band work whenever there's a show. And he said, 'That's my passion and I'm so excited to be doing it,'' Ganzhorn says. 'And there are countless people out in the community who I think would say something similar, that their time here was really impactful.'
The $20,000 grant will help fund 68 subscription boxes in their Feed Two Birds program, which provides fresh produce to people in the community who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it. Their ultimate goal is to raise a total of $70,000 to ensure that 238 families have access to fresh, nutritious food, spread across ten boxes.
Ganzhorn says it's taken time to reach the level of impact they now have, and she advises other nonprofits to expand carefully. 'We've always started very small and built on our successes,' Ganzhorn says. 'We looked at things that weren't working and let go of them.' For Ganzhorn, building a strong and committed team of employees and community volunteers is key.
'We have a good team, strong board, and good delegation,' Ganzhorn says. 'There are sometimes surprises or unexpected events… we work hard to be adaptable and resilient.'
At times, the hours are long. But Ganzhorn says she feels lucky. 'I feel like I found the job I was made for,' she says. 'This is the work I was called to do.'
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Sponsored by Intuit. Legal residents of the 50 US (D.C.), 18+ can nominate Businesses that are located and operate in the 50 US (D.C.). Void where prohibited. Enter Contest by 5/15/26. Terms and Conditions Apply. See Official Rules for all business eligibility requirements, phase dates, and entry details, at https://quickbooks.intuit.com/offers/small-business-hero-program .