DALLAS — Any gardener knows that a successful garden requires patience, commitment and tender, delicate care. Some Dallas residents are learning when they do just that, they can reap a whole lot more than what they’ve sowed.
A new garden in the Wilson Historic District gives survivors of trafficking and exploitation the chance to not only plant peppers, purple peas and zucchinis, but new lives of their own
“For some of these ladies, this is the first job they’ve ever had,” said Kim High, the garden’s farm director. “Putting your hands in that dirt, it’s just absolutely therapeutic. It’s just like something touches you or something.”
The Meadows Foundation, New Friends New Life and Bonton Farms broke ground on a new 1-acre project labeled the Liberty Street Garden. The garden, funded through a Meadows Foundation grant, will give survivors of trafficking and exploitation a shot at a steady hourly job that provides organic fruits, vegetables and herbs to farmers markets and local restaurants in Dallas.
The garden will provide six members of the New Friends New Life women’s program with a part-time gardening position. The women will work alongside High, a celebrated gardener in her own right, to grow fresh produce, and earn $10 an hour. The apprenticeships are slated to last about 6 to 9 months, with room for promotion.
“Working at Liberty Street Garden allows (a survivor) to build her skills while earning an income in a space where she knows that she is accepted, valued and capable,” said Bianca Davis, the CEO of New Friends New Life. “And how serendipitous that this garden exists on a street named Liberty. You can’t make that up.”
The Meadows Foundation, a wide-ranging charity focused on improving life in Texas, helped create the project with New Friends New Life, a charity that helps to empower trafficked and sexually exploited teen girls, women and their children. Together, with the help of the South Dallas-based nonprofit Bonton Farms, the garden will help give the women “a tangible opportunity to soar above the limits of their past and achieve their dreams,” Davis said.
Gay Donnell Williams, City Council member from District 13 and vice chair of the Domestic Violence and Human Trafficking Advisory Council, said New Friends New Life has played a vital role in supporting survivors of trafficking and prostitution in the Dallas area for decades.
“People being able to work out here and just going through the cathartic exercise of tending to life, I think it’s going to be a big thing for them,” she said. “This is so critical, helping these folks be compensated, be in a role that is understanding of the trauma they’ve lived through, and it can help them reach that next step on a path to stability.”
Ollie, an apprentice at the Liberty Street Garden who asked to only be identified by first name, said she used to garden as a child with her grandmother, and working the garden brings back those special memories.
“It’s a joy doing the garden with these ladies, working with the people I’m around,” she said. “Everybody is getting along, no one is arguing, there’s a peace of mind.”
