Empowered Spaces Community Garden
Planting Connections, Growing Communities
Imagine a space where fresh food is grown by the community, for the community.
Where your hands in the soil heal both the land and yourself.
A place to learn, connect, and build a more just, sustainable future — together.
That’s what we’re growing at Empowered Spaces Community Garden—
and we invite you to be a part of it!
What is the Empowered Spaces Community Garden?
Located at the heart of our holistic healing center, our community-led garden is rooted in permaculture principles, perennial agriculture, environmental sustainability, and community care.
Our garden currently includes:
🌳 35 fruit and nut trees
🌿 6 raised garden beds
🌸 A pollination garden, a medicinal herb bed, and a tea garden
We believe that food is medicine, that land stewardship is healing, and that everyone—regardless of income—deserves access to nutritious, high-quality food.
Through our Collaborative Food Share Program we share the harvest with individuals and families who need it most.
We’re honored to partner with Dail Chambers and Coahoma Orchards to support residents in the Greater Ville, Jeff Vanderlou, Wells-Goodfellow, and Baden neighborhoods in North St. Louis.
More Than Just a Garden—
We Are a Movement
At Empowered Spaces, we aren’t just tending the soil—we’re tending to community, justice, and collective healing.
We grow food and share it.
The majority of our harvest goes directly to individuals and families who need it most, because we believe fresh, organic food is a right, not a privilege.
We teach and empower.
Our garden is a living classroom for sustainable gardening, permaculture, and ecological care.
We honor the land.
We use regenerative practices that restore the earth and recognize land stewardship as an act of reciprocity.
We reclaim relationship.
We strengthen our connection with the land and with one another — fostering mutual support, belonging, and community care.
We Integrate Healing.
Gardening becomes a practice of resilience, grounding, and collective care — a trauma-informed way to reconnect with self, community, and the natural world.
LEARN & PRACTICE –
Get hands-on experience with organic gardening, permaculture, and sustainable land stewardship — whether you’re brand new or experienced.
COMMUNITY CARE –
Join a cooperative grounded in mutual support, equity, and justice. Participate in community organizing and locally-rooted partnerships. It’s about community, not just crops.
HEAL, LEARN & GROW –
Experience the therapeutic benefits of tending the earth and join our “In the Garden” workshop series exploring embodiment, justice, wellness, yoga, meditation, sound healing, creative expression, and more.
CONNECT & GIVE BACK –
Help share organic food with those who need it most through our Collaborative Food Share Program. Members also receive a small basket of produce during harvest season — a reminder that we all thrive when we share.
When You Join the Garden Co-op
Schedule:
We currently meet for workdays:
One Saturday each month (9:00–11:00am)
One Sunday each month (10:00am–12:00pm)
Before select workdays, join us for Yoga In The Garden — a free, 30-minute class in the grass to warm up your body and connect with the natural world.
Kids are welcomed and encouraged to join us!
Sunday, April 13
Saturday, April 26
Sunday, May 4
Saturday, May 17
Sunday, June 1
Saturday, June 21
Sunday, July 13
Saturday, July 26
Sunday, August 3
Saturday, August 16
Sunday, September 7
Saturday, September 20
Sunday, October 5
Saturday, October 18
To join the garden co-op, all members will:
Sign up with a self-determined sliding-scale annual membership fee. See below for how to sign up.
Attend the garden workdays that fit your schedule.
Receive a small basket of produce during harvest seasons
Sign up with a self-determined, sliding-scale annual membership fee, or make a one-time investment in the garden.
Membership is $5–$75, self-chosen.
We use a sliding scale to honor the real differences in access to wealth, privilege, and resources shaped by race, class, gender identity, orientation, education, ability, and more.
Choose a contribution that feels sustainable and aligned with equity and care.
How to Contribute
Venmo - to Kelly Caul (@EmpoweredSpaces).
Check made out to Empowered Spaces, LLC and mailed to:
7602 Big Bend Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63119.
Paypal (please note that 3% of your donation will
be deducted for service fee)
Please note on your payment whether it’s for membership or a one-time donation.
Sign up Here
Yoga In The Garden
Join us for a free, 30-minute yoga class before select garden workdays.
Led by Jessie Kissinger (she/her) and Angela Dahm (she/her), these sessions prepare your body for gardening with gentle movement, joint warm-ups, and nature-based mindfulness.
Bring a mat, blanket, or practice directly on the grass.
A series of donation-based workshops exploring justice-driven approaches to embodiment, mental health, and community wellness.
Free for garden members; donation-based for the community.
100% of donations support the garden and the Collaborative Food Share Program.
In The Garden Workshop Series
Join us in creating more of the world we want to see!
Mission
The Empowered Spaces Community Garden is an organic, cooperative movement dedicated to:
Food access for all
Embodied healing and wellness education
Equitable and empowering community
Anti-racist and justice-driven solidarity
Through cooperative farming and community partnerships, we aim to cultivate locally-based, sustainable, and trauma-informed ways of connecting, caring, and creating resilience together.
Collaborative Food Share Program
Our mission is to make organic produce and herbs accessible to community members and partner organizations throughout North St. Louis.
In partnership with Dail Chambers and Coahoma Orchards our food is distributed through neighborhood groups, block units, local churches, and wellness-centered community networks.
Special interest Wellness CSA style bags are created for Sovereign University, a local homeschool community and any identified expecting mothers within the area. We also hold an elder priority - if it comes up in the aforementioned spaces that there is an elder person or large family in need of emergency support or mutual aid, we give those folks priority.
Deep Gratitude
Thank you to our Community Partner
We are deeply grateful to Denise DeGhelder and our community partner Garden Heights Nursery for donation seedlings and plant starters to our garden.
Thank you to Our Garden Bed Sponsors
Holly Strelow Counseling
Sponsor of a Red Cedar Raised Bed plus Supplies
Doulas of Greater St. Louis
Sponsor of a Red Cedar Raised Bed plus Supplies
Stephanie Dunn and Amy Strothcamp
Sponsor of a Raised Cedar Bed
Becky Mulvihill McKenna, Ph.D., LMFT, LCSW
Sponsor of a Raised Cedar Bed
Sponsor of a Raised Cedar Bed by an Anonymous Donor
Thank You to Our Orchard Sponsors
Neil & Mary Kiesel
Sponsor of 1 Almond Tree
Cindy Heidenry, MSW, LCSW
Sponsor of 1 Almond Tree
Carol Devanny
Sponsor of 2 Paw Paw Trees
Kelly Storck
Sponsor of 1 Raspberry Bush
Dottie and Colton Coriell
Sponsor of 4 Persimmon Trees
Denise, Jen and Jason from Rolling Ridge Nursery
Sponsor of 3 Clove Currants
Anu French
Sponsor of Bush Cherries
Maizie Ellingsen
Sponsor of 2 Apple Trees
Everett Ellingsen
Sponsor of 9 Raspberry Bushes
Jeff & Linda Caul
Sponsor of 2 Asian Pear Trees
Oasis Counseling Services
Sponsor of 1 Almond Tree
Jeni Schilpzand
Sponsor of 2 Clove Currants
This garden is made possible and supported by Kelly Caul, Founding Director of Empowered Spaces, and the Empowered Spaces Team. Thank you also to Gateway Greening, who provided the initial grant and infrastructure for the garden.
Thank you to Amy Knox, Rena Schergen, Rieko Griffin, and Kelly Caul- our Community Garden Leadership Circle!
A huge thank you to Sarika Talve-Goodman! The birth of this garden would not have happened without her. Sarika Talve-Goodman is at the beginning of deeper learning about community gardening and permaculture. This process is supported by the mentorship of Karen Flotte, who leads the Mitzvah Farm at Central Reform Congregation.
