Mission
To close the gap on food inequities and achieve a community culture of health and wellbeing.
Vision
A healthy, thriving community empowered and self-reliant with the knowledge to produce their own food source and make healthy choices.
Our Story
Beauty’s Community Garden is located in Independence Heights–the first African American municipality in Texas and one of 40 food deserts in Houston.
Purchased property in 1926 by her grandparents, Ernest and Beauty Leno, Yvette Leno later inherited the land. In 1991, a devastating fire destroyed the family’s homestead. In 2012, Yvette repurposed the land into a community garden she named after her grandmother, “Beauty.”
Our Garden Space
Today, Beauty’s Community Garden is growing into the vision Yvette imagined, a place for community members to come together to access and learn about healthy whole foods they can plant. The garden is a natural place to plant roots and connect the benefits of choosing healthy foods by learning about nutrition and its impact on a person’s physical and mental well-being.
Beauty's Community Garden runs over 6,000 square feet with a 20 ft container. The garden features community-connected spaces where 10-15 volunteers support the garden weekly, and a variety of fresh produce and herbs are grown and sustained.
Impact Taking Root
We provide community service hours and hands-on gardening clinics with our community partners, businesses, schools, and community groups within the garden and throughout the larger Houston community.
Our Core Values
Promote the preservation of the character, history, and community culture. Support values that uplift and promote a community that thrives.
We value caring, respecting, and responding to the individual needs of our community through our gardening and support programs.
We're rooting for you, ensuring you achieve the best today and tomorrow. We teach and serve you with fresh produce using sustainable food production methods.
We foster a welcoming atmosphere for cultural bridge building. We set our table with an eye on finding connections through exploring and celebrating the many food choices in our cultures.
We bring transparency regarding our food growing methods to our responsibility of stewardship with our supporters, donors, and sponsors and to our service to community members.
Meet the Team
Everything Beauty's Community Garden has been able to provide and acomplish has been through the dedication of our volunteers. Beauty's Community Garden is currently 100% volunteer led. We are working to change that, so we can provide a stronger sustainable organization. Please consider that as you review the different program and event participation opportunities.
Sam Nuckols
Lifetime Friend of the Garden
As the former Co-Manager of Beauty's Community Garden, I deeply cherish the time spent there and the amazing people I've met, appreciating the garden's unmatched social and educational opportunities.
Eric Frisk
Volunteer Instructor
As the owner of Growing in Nature in Houston, TX, I'm a master gardener and composter dedicated to sustainable food production and education.
Richanda Morgan
Graphic Designer
Using my graphic design skills for a worthy cause is truly fulfilling. It's incredibly rewarding to shine a light on food desert communities and promote healthy eating habits, knowing that my work makes a tangible impact.
Tangie Cooper
Organization CPA
As owner of Tangie R. Cooper CPA, Inc, I use my skill to give back to the Beauty's Community Garden Organization because it represents a worthy cause that is making a difference.
June Northern
Program Director
I love how eating organic food has positively affected my life, providing a clean gut, clean skin and a healthy lifestyle.
Abirami Balachandran
Social Media Intern
Organic gardening has always been very meaningful to me because it is a time that my grandmother and I spend together and use different ways to enrich the soil and save water, our way of giving back to nature.
Content Support
Lindsey Patty
Content Contributor
Health & Nutrition
I love combining my passions of helping others and gardening with writing, by delivering easy-to-read nutritious content that showcases the importance of gardening and personal health.
Wrennah Gabbert
Content Contributor
Health & Nutrition
I am a Professor by day and a Freelance Writer by night. As a Pediatric and Family Nurse Practitioner, I write about the benefits of food, nutrition, and their connection to a healthy life.
Geraldine Jeannot
Content Strategist
Sponsorship & Marketing
I specialize in web content creation, sponsorship writing, and marketing strategy to help Beauty's Community Garden reach its audience and accomplish its goals.
Our Partners
Development Partners
Program Partners
Garden Partners
Friends & Supporters
