A publication of The Colorado Trust
Español Menu

Doug Wooley waters green onions, rosemary and Cosmos flowers, among other plants, at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust

Food

Juanita Nolasco Residents Chart a Different Path: Community Gardening That’s Accessible

Leer en español

Doug Wooley, with a hose in hand, rides his mobility scooter over to a thick crop of violet and pink Cosmos flowers growing unruly out of an old bathtub. Nearby, Chris Moreno and John Mullins water and weed in garden beds dotted with all sorts of fruits and vegetables—red heirloom tomatoes, dark collard greens, curvy green onions and overgrown zucchinis. A small metal sign, shaped like a house, that reads “Home,” hangs on one of the more than two dozen wooden garden bed posts. That home is the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden, where Moreno, Mullins and Wooley live. 

The garden beds teem with life every summer below the large terracotta and tan 188-unit apartment building that sticks out among the neighborhoods of single-family homes near Sixth Avenue and Sheridan Boulevard in west Denver. But it didn’t always look that way.

(Story continues after slideshow below.)


Photojournalist Eli Imadali visited the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden several times in 2023, 2024 and this year. Check out the slideshow below, which includes photographs from the garden and other events the community’s residents have participated in.


Wooley, 44, first noticed the garden beds sitting unused when he moved to the Section 8 housing development for seniors on fixed incomes and people with disabilities in 2009. He, alongside other residents, saw an opportunity in the wooden beds. They wanted to grow a garden. 

As Wooley, Moreno, 70, and Mullins, 62, got the garden beds and a club started in 2018, they worked on improving the soil with cover crops and compost while growing different fruits and vegetables. Residents trickled in and out of the garden for those first couple seasons. In 2022, the garden became part of the Denver Urban Gardens network. 

What started as a grassroots gardening effort is now helping to build community among the building’s older residents and people with disabilities, while combating food insecurity.

Alvie Muniz, left, Doug Wooley, and John Mullins share laughs after hosting a volunteer day at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Denver, Colo. While Mullins noted that he has increasingly debilitating physical disabilities, he still goes out to the garden as much as possible to help and socialize. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust

Fresh food can be difficult to access for older people and those with physical and other limitations, like many of Juanita Nolasco’s residents. People with disabilities face higher rates of food insecurity in the U.S. The closest grocery store to Juanita Nolasco is well over a mile away—a significant distance when most of the building’s low-income residents rely on public transportation and face barriers to walking, biking or driving.

Additionally, loneliness and a lack of community have disproportionately affected elderly people and people with disabilities, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. But gardening and other efforts by residents making up the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club have begun to fill some of those gaps. 

All food harvested from the garden is first distributed among the 10 or so active participants of the club—the number varies throughout each garden season. Any extra food is available for any resident to use. The garden, however, can only produce so much with limited participation and unpredictable harvests each year in just over two dozen garden beds. So, the club has facilitated a partnership with GoFarm, a mobile market of fresh and local produce (and a 2024 Colorado Trust grantee) that regularly visits Juanita Nolasco. The garden club has also spearheaded a no-cost grocery program in partnership with Denver Food Rescue, one of its ongoing efforts to combat food insecurity among the residents.

And all the while, a small but tight-knit community has grown around the garden over the years.

Juanita Nolasco residents pick out fresh produce from mobile market GoFarm on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Denver, Colo. The garden club faciliated a partnership with GoFarm, a 2024 Colorado Trust grantee, to bring fresh food to residents at subsidized prices twice a month. GoFarm also accepts SNAP, and the first $10 of groceries for Juanita Nolasco residents from the market are free. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust 

“When we have also a multitude of health challenges, whatever that may look like, it’s really hard to go do things around people. But if you can go out into a garden that’s blooming for 15, 20 minutes, that’s better than being in the apartment,” Wooley, who has spina bifida, said. 

For Wooley, having the garden club community has been personal. People around him have, especially his mom, always brought him to a better place after hard childhood and medical experiences, he said. But after she died, he felt like he lost a big part of that community and care. 

Juanita Nolasco Residences, the tan and terracotta building dominating the skyline in this photograph taken on Wednesday, July 2, 2025, is a 188-unit Section 8 housing development for older adults and people disabilities, in west Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado

“So, I’ve always tried to help rebuild that because I know how important that is,” Wooley said. “I know for me, when I feel the sense of belonging, I’m much more willing to put the time and energy and effort into it because hey, I’m a part of it. I can make it move forward or to the left or the rightwhatever we need to dobut I’m not alone.” 

Mullins, who has severe osteoarthritis, diabetes, coronary disease and an amputated left foot, said the garden is a good way to bring people together who may otherwise not leave their homes.

“These guys aren’t the biggest social butterflies, but it sure beats sitting up in my room watching crap online,” he said. “I have to do something. I ain’t ready to roll over yet.”

These days, a few members meet every week at the garden throughout the spring, summer and fall. They water the beds, discuss conditions and upcoming events and talk through improvements they can make. They’ve made some adaptations to help enable gardening for resident members, mostly in the tools they use. Residents can sit on rolling stools to more easily move around and be closer to the ground for activities like pulling weeds. They’ve begun experimenting lately with higher raised beds to minimize back-bending for those in wheelchairs, too. And work from volunteers throughout the season continues to be a welcome help to fill in the gaps. 

Wooley and other members have grander visions for the space, but for now, Wooley thinks about the small wins. When they first started working the soil seven years ago, there weren’t any wormsan indicator of healthy soil. But now, worms wiggle all throughout the nutrient-rich dirt.

A Juanita Nolasco resident speaks with fellow residents John Mullins, center, and Chris Moreno, right, as they garden together at the complex’s community garden on July 20, 2023, in Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust

Anyone interested in volunteering at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden can sign up with Denver Urban Gardens. 

From left, the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club’s main gardeners John Mullins, Alvie Muniz, Doug Wooley, Kayelene Martinez and Chris Moreno, pose for portraits, at the community garden in July and August 2024, in Denver, Colo. Photos by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust

Eli Imadali

Freelance Photo & Video Journalist
Denver, Colo.

See all stories by this author

You Might Also Be Interested In

Sign up to receive our original stories by email.

Close