Organic Landscape Design

Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
April 15, 2001
By Matt Branaugh

Stepping Stones of Self-Sufficiency

Funny what a vacation can do. For most, it?s an overdue chance to relax. For David Ward, a trip to Santa Cruz, Calif., showed
him a way to start a program that will help area homeless build a garden and tend to it for a daily wage.

Ward's nonprofit business, the Network of Interfaith Compassionate Entrepreneurs, will use land donated by the Broomfield
Presbyterian Church to operate the Stepping Stones Garden there up to 10 years.

The Broomfield man picks up participants throughout the Denver metro area several times each week to work on the project,
where they nurture green beans, snow peas, squash, flowers and other garden delights. Last week, the project received
certification as an organic garden.

"It not only does a healing process of connecting them with their own body and the soil, with creation, but it also provides
an income," Ward said.

Those products will be sold initially in open-air markets, Ward said, and he hopes to eventually align with local restaurants and
grocers. Ward's livelihood entails helping other. He started NICE last year to connect people and resources with those who are
struggling. The business, a 501 c) 3, mostly operates on the support of grants, donations and volunteers. NICE already offers a
massage program for homeless people, helps find storage space for recently evicted families and individuals and provide
seminars for inner-city youth.

Last fall, the business help 105 single-parent families build a playground near their Denver neighborhood, an area mostly
comprised of subsidized housing. Ward attests to the value of his newest endeavor. He was A Jesuit bother for 2 years, spending
seven of those years at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Sedalia. At Sacred Heart, he tended to rosebushes, trees and flowers
planted on 280 acres.

"I experienced a healing in my body and a centering to be able to start something like that," he said. "It was fruitful in my life,
and I think it can be fruitful in other people's lives as well."

He was inspired watching Santa Cruz's Homeless Garden Project in action last fall and has been in contact with trhe staff there
ever since.

The Homeless Garden Project employs 20 "worker/trainees",  20 less fortunate men and women, alongside as many as 70
volunteers. Since its start in May 1990, the program has endured budget and land obstacles to become a mainstay in the
community, said Jane Petroff, its executive director.

"What makes it unique and brings it such strong community support is that it benefits homeless people by giving then new skills
with which to make changes in their lif professionally and personally," Petroff said.

After a two-to three year stint, the workers head out looking for a job related to what they learn through the program, be it in
farming, landscaping or yard work.

"There's no limit to the ways they can apply the skills they learn," she said.

A pilot program spun from the Santa Cruz garden, called the Women's Organic Flower Enterprise, formed in 1994 to create
year-round work for women participants. In that program, flowers are grown, dried and interwoven into wreaths, candles and
other crafts.

It has since become its own business, Petroff said. In 1998, the gross profit from the sale of items made in the flower enterprise was
about $36,000. In 1999, it grew to $52,000. Last year it jumped to $88,000. The Homeless Garden Project, including the flower
enterprise, has a budget of $440,500, a 25 % increase from the previous year.

"We take it seriously as a business," she said.

With success has come the need for more skills. The Santa Cruz staff and workers will take a 10-session training program
outlining business management, marketing and sales skills.

Ward has a good start, Petroff said. "The best way to succeed in this is to get land you can keep for the long-term."

With Stepping Stones Garden, Ward hopes to pay workers $8 and hour. NICE received $3,600 from Spirit of Christ Catholic
Community in Arvada, and his preliminary budget calls for $134,000 to cover startup wages and program costs.

He has a volunteer base of about 22 for the garden, including students from Regis University. A farmer north of Broomfield
donated the use of a tractor. The chairman of NICE's board donated a 15-seat van. About $1,000 in seeds were given last month from
the Denver Rescue Mission's Harvest Farm in Wellington, Colo. The 100-acre farm houses 60 men who use that program to learn
skills. Regroup their lives and also become self-sufficient.

Ward has applications submitted to several foundations requesting more funding, and he hopes to attract more help from businesses
and area groups. Grants, along with sales of the vegetables and flowers, will determine how much the program can expand next year.

"Our goal at the NICE Corp. is initiative to help the homeless and their recovery. We want them to pick up on their own initiative.
We want to build up an organization that supports them in their labor and in the process helps them know they are self-sufficient."
Ward said. "If they can be self-sufficient, that's a huge support for their recovery."

Contact Matt Branaugh at branaughm@thedailycamera.com or 303-473-1363. (Picture, not included has a caption which reads
"David Ward, right, with NICE, helps Casey Lee Meyers use a rototiller as they break the ground for the garden.")