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
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
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.
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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. |
LEFT: A Juanita Nolasco resident uses a hand cultivator tool while picking weeds on Saturday, July 15, 2023, at the complex’s community garden, in Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
RIGHT: A pruned vegetable shoot sits on a rolling stool, which helps gardeners who are older or who have disabilities move around more easily and be closer to the ground for activities like pulling weeds, on Saturday, July 15, 2023, at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden in Denver, Colo. Photos by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
From left, Chris Moreno, Kayelene Martinez and Doug Wooley plant garlic and other plants early in the season on Thursday, May 23, 2024, during one of the Juanita Nolasco Garden Club meetings. The 188-unit Juanita Nolasco Residences, a Section 8 housing development for older adults and people with disabilities, in Denver, Colo., sits behind them. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Gardeners and founders of the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden and club, John Mullins and Chris Moreno, chat and laugh as they pull weeds at the garden on Thursday, July 20, 2023, in Denver, Colo. The garden club has helped develop a small but tight-knit community during an essential time for older adults and people with disabilities, who are disproportionately affected by loneliness and a lack of community, particularly after the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Doug Wooley, center right, examines the food on the table after setting out fresh produce from the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden for no-cost food distribution on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in the complex’s community room in Denver, Colo., as other residents and gardeners, including Kayelene Martinez, center left, gather food. The garden club spearheaded a no-cost grocery program in partnership with Denver Food Rescue, one of its ongoing efforts to address food insecurity among the residents. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Doug Wooley, one of the founders and main gardeners of the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden, examines a watermelon in the garden on Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023, in Denver, Colo. The garden club has helped rebuild a sense of belonging for Wooley, whose mother’s death impacted his feelings of community and support. That renewed sense of belonging is what energizes him to put in the time and effort required for the garden, he said. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Christopher Dowdy (back), who’s been living at Juanita Nolasco since 2016, shops for fresh produce at the GoFarm Mobile Market at Juanita Nolasco Residences on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Denver, Colo., with his personal care agent Cherisse Powell. If it weren’t for the mobile market, grocery shopping would be much more complicated, he said. Dowdy, who is autistic and allergic to nuts, doesn’t always trust the shopping assistants at grocery stores to get the right products, and if he wanted to go himself, he’d have to find a ride. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Sonja Shearron washes collard greens from the community garden to make ratatouille in her apartment on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, at Juanita Nolasco Residences in Denver, Colo. While she doesn’t completely rely on food from the garden, she enjoys occasionally using and eating its fresh, local food, she said. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Sonja Shearron, a former resident council member of Juanita Nolasco Residences, peels garlic she got from the community garden while cooking in her apartment on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, in Denver, Colo. Shearron said the stigma and shame around needing help to access food prevents some residents from fully utilizing the garden and other free food initiatives. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
From left, gardeners John Mullins and Alvie Muniz, and student volunteer Aristotle Ramirez, 15, work in the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Denver, Colo. Volunteers like Ramirez help fill in the gaps at the garden since resident gardeners have some physical and time limitations that prevent them from getting everything that they want done. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Nadine Hull, who is Indigenous and is living with post-traumatic stress disorder, waters plants at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Denver, Colo. She’s learned to listen to the nearby stream, bees and other sounds around the garden, finding joy in watching things grow, she said. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to the Colorado Trust
LEFT: A grasshopper crawls on a weed at the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Saturday, July 15, 2023, in Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
RIGHT: A green bean is displayed atop Doug Wooley’s phone, showing a Juanita Nolasco Garden Club to-do list, during a club meeting on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023, in Denver, Colo. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Doug Wooley, one of the founders and main gardeners of the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden, moves past a high-raised bed, which the gardeners are experimenting with to minimize back bending for people in wheelchairs, on Saturday, July 20, 2024, in Denver, Colo. An angel statue, painted by gardener Alvie Muniz, sits nearby in the garden. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
Sonja Shearron prays before eating a meal made with produce from the Juanita Nolasco Community Garden on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, in Denver, Colo. While the self-proclaimed “city girl” doesn’t garden herself, she likes visiting the garden to socialize with other residents and frequently works with the gardeners on food security efforts for the residents. Photo by Eli Imadali / Special to The Colorado Trust
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 right—whatever we need to do—but 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 worms—an indicator of healthy soil. But now, worms wiggle all throughout the nutrient-rich dirt.
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
