May 8, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode of Farm Talk, we're joined by Jenn Rodriguez, the program manager of Growing Works. Jenn kicks off the show by introducing us to Growing Works and its profound connection to the mental health community. She delves into the diverse team behind Growing Works and illuminates the process of getting started with the program.
As our conversation progresses, Jenn sheds light on the immense benefits individuals with mental health challenges experience through their work at Growing Works. She shares touching stories about the individuals who thrive in this nurturing environment and how the program is tailored to their needs. We also learn about the program's operational details, including its schedule, funding, and partnerships with organizations like Ventura County Behavioral Health and Turning Point. Throughout the episode, Jenn highlights Growing Works' impactful festivals, workshops, and its role as a beacon of hope and empowerment in the community.
Watch the full episode HERE
What you’ll learn in this episode: 0:00 Welcome to the show and introduction of our guest, Jenn Rodriguez, program manager of Growing Works
0:35 Jenn Rodriguez tell us what Growing Works is and what the connection is to the mental health community
1:10 Who works at Growing Works and what getting started looks like
2:36 How those with mental health challenges are benefited by working at Growing Works
3:21 Jenn tells us more about the individuals who work at Growing Works
8:25 The days and hours of the program at Growing Works is based on the contract and funding provided by Ventura County Behavioral Health.
9:03 What is Competitive Employment?
10:21 Growing Works has 2 festivals a year: Their Spring Fling and A Fall Festival
11:11 Jenn digs deeper into describing how individuals get involved at Growing Works
13:07 How Growing Works manages their employees who struggle with mental health illness
15:51 The connection between Growing Works and Turning Point
16:30 Find out if the Growing Works employees live in a Turning Point facility or if they live on their own
18:08 Other activities Growing Works has throughout the year and when Growing Works is open to the public
19:06 Who leads the workshops?
19:35 The future of Growing Works
20:58 The awesome watering system Growing Works has on their site
21:48 Where Growing Works sells and some of the clients that they work with
23:12 Jenn tells us where Growing Works receives their funding
23:52 How can people get more involved and contact information and social media for Turning Point and Growing Works
24:44 The age of Growing Works
25:26 Where the idea of mental health patients working with plants originated and what Growing works grows
26:46 Growing Works as a resource for knowledge on water conservation and much more
27:22 An amazing success story shared by Jenn
30:13 A special thank you to our sponsor, Opus Escrow
Related Episodes: Unveiling Humanity Through Compassion, Hope & a Costume
A Recovery Oasis at Nate’s Place
Growing Works Nursery: turningpointfoundation.org 1736 S Lewis Rd, Camarillo, Ca 93012 (805) 586-9900
Contact Paul Ward: 805-479-5004 paul@homeandranchteam.com
Have ideas for future episodes? We'd love to answer your questions - leave a comment! For any home buying or home selling needs in the Ventura County area of California, please reach out to Paul@HomeAndRanchTeam.com or visit www.HomeAndRanchTeam.com
A special THANK YOU to our sponsor, OPUS ESCROW! Farm Talk with Paul Ward would not be possible without the support of our sponsor Opus Escrow. Supporting our sponsor ensures Farm Talk can provide listeners with the best possible episodes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Today on Farm Talk, we're talkingabout cultivating mental health.
Hi friends. It's Paul Ward here, andwelcome to this episode of Farm Talk.
I'm very excited.
Today we are talking about a connectionbetween farming and mental health.
And who better to talk about it thanour special guest today? Jen Rodriguez,
the program manager with GrowingWorks. Jen, welcome to Farm Talk.
(00:22):
Thank you.
Absolutely. And of course, we wannathank our sponsor, Opus Escrow. So, Jen,
tell us about Growing Works andits connection to the mental health
community.
So, Growing Works is a program of TurningPoint Foundation and Turning Point
supports adults with mental healthchallenges, homelessness issues,
and substance abuse here in VenturaCounty. So, we're one of 14 programs,
(00:46):
but we're the only for-profit businessand the only like business-business
in that we're a wholesale nurseryand a mental health recovery program.
And our slogan is actually,"Cultivating Mental Health.
"So that's what we try to do here.
Very cool. Cultivating mentalhealth. So, who works here?
Is it anybody that wants to, is itfolks that have mental challenges?
(01:10):
Yes. It's kind of the answer toyour first question is yes and no.
Because we have support employees andwe have members who are volunteer corps,
and all of those people are referredfrom Ventura County Behavioral Health.
With whom we contractfor the recovery program.
And then we also havecommunity volunteers. So,
you or your neighbor or yourwife's cousin's aunt could go onto
(01:34):
the Turning Point Foundation websiteand fill out a volunteer form.
We meet all of our volunteers 'cause wewanna make sure that Growing Works is
always a super safe placein every aspect. You know,
we all have that friend or neighbor whowants to tell us how to fix our life.
Well, they're not really welcome here.
I keep my people safe and keep GrowingWorks really, really positive. And so,
(01:57):
everybody's kind of checked to make surethat they're gonna be a great fit and
supportive of our peopleand of our mission. So yeah,
we then we onboard peopleand they get to work.
And a stigma about mentalhealth that seems to be
dissipating a little bit. And
(02:18):
who are the folks, I guess clarifying,
who are the folks that work here in termsof their mental health challenges and
how would they be, I guess benefited,right? Because you're working with nature.
Yes.
And which is kind of apeaceful feeling. Right?
And the world is stressful.
Yes. This is a very peacefulenvironment. You know,
we have the backdrop ofthe Santa Monica Mountains.
(02:41):
There's actually a pack ofcoyotes that lives in our back 40.
Oh, wow.
Some people find that scary.Many of us find it fun.
There's a lot of birds here.We have certain snakes.
But there's just a very peacefulvibe and a lot of nature.
A couple years ago,
I actually found a study about farmersand how they get depressed less than
other professions. And I didn't knowanything about farming, you know,
(03:02):
that's kind of wild. And farming's hard.
It is hard.
Like today we can't control the weather.
We can't control the weather on any day.
And you just do your best with allthese really challenging variables.
I think there's a micrological aspect. So,
fungi and bacteria in the soil actuallyhelp as a natural antidepressant.
Interesting.
That's a total sidebar.
(03:24):
Our people come from referral fromVentura County Behavioral Health. So,
they're all receiving services.
They're also all in a place where they'rereally owning their diagnosis. So,
when people, the onset,
or usually identification of a seriousmental health diagnosis is in late teens
to early twenties.
And often because that kind of evolvesover time and people might not have a
(03:47):
major psychotic event for years.
It can take a long time to getall that kind of dialed in,
like properly diagnosed,properly medicated,
and on the path to recovery. So,
most of our people are kindof a few years down the road,
so they're receiving services.They're medication compliant. So,
they're on meds and they've received agood diagnosis and they're working at
(04:10):
getting to a place in their lives wherethey're managing their diagnosis and
having life outside of the diagnosis. So,
they range from twenties to, Ihave one gentleman who's excellent,
who's in his sixties. They haveall kinds of different diagnoses.
We see a lot of people withschizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
severe depression, anxietydisorders, OCD, eating disorders. So,
(04:34):
there's really a full range.
And that actually also speaks tohow we treat people as individuals.
Not everybody wants to water.
Some people wanna drag hose and waterand keep the plants alive. Thank you.
But that's not for everybody.
Some people don't have like thephysical strength and I water. Usually,
I feel it the next day. Like it'sa Tylenol day. Just 'cause it,
they're so heavy. We have one gentleman,the gentleman I spoke with before,
(04:58):
who pulls most of our orders. He'sgreat at it. He loves driving the Gator,
which is a little electric vehicle.
And he also was on the streetsfor over two decades. As
often happens during that time,he was attacked on the streets.
Like the living on the streets beinghomeless is it's very dangerous.
(05:18):
Right. Whether you're male orfemale, kind of doesn't matter.
H e's critical to ourbusiness as well, or a team.
He has a buddy who
also describes being in a cycle ofsubstance abuse and addiction and
incarceration. And then he wouldget clean and sober and kind of,
it started all over again. Andthat was for a number of decades.
(05:39):
They're best buddies. In America, a lotof men aren't great at having friends.
There's this kind of weirddisconnect for American males.
Like it's less okay than, you know, women.
It's okay if women have a lot of friends;
they're so tight and they reallyset the tone for the group.
They're so leading by examplein this tight friendship.
And they're reallypurposeful when we have,
we have newbies that kind ofbringing them into the fold.
(05:59):
And that all works against the isolationthat's so common in mental health.
That stigma contributes to, Iam a two-time cancer survivor.
Oh, wow.
I know firsthand, thank you, how isolatingany physical illness is. You know, if
you have cancer, you kind of drop outtayour own life. You might not work,
or you might have to go to alot of doctor's appointments.
(06:21):
And the whole pattern andschedule of your life changes. So,
there's less time to, you know,
eat cookies watching TV orhang out with your friends.
Mental illness takes thatto like 10 more degrees,
'cause now people see youas a freak. Or, you know,
mentally defective. I thinkis a common stereotype.
And so that leads to isolation. Andthen people can self-isolate too.
(06:44):
'Cause If you don't trust your mindand with schizophrenia in particular,
there might be voices in yourhead. That you don't know.
You can't discern whetherthat's like okay or not.
It isolates people even more. So,
just socialization and being part of agroup is a big part of Growing Works.
We're also super purposefulabout celebrating
(07:05):
victories and achievements.
L week I think we had pizzaand salad and ice cream
cake and pasta,
because last month March wasour biggest sales month ever.
Oh wow.
So, sometimes it might seem alittle forced or a little made up,
but when you're working with peoplewho've had so many failures, you know,
they might have family failure. Theymay not parent their kids anymore. Some
(07:29):
are college educated, but manycouldn't make it that far.
They might not have evengraduated high school.
And serious mental illness putsa real strain on families. So,
one gentleman after working at GrowingWorks for a few years was able to get
back in contact with his familyof origin. But it's just hard.
It's hard for everybody. So,
if we can kind of refill thatbank of success in a very
(07:54):
corporate but also individualway, it's all good. You know,
it's all moving peoplein the right direction.
And we all feel good when we'vewon, and we've achieved something.
And we're just again,
really purposeful about saying whetheryou delivered the plants on the truck,
went on the delivery, or you transplantedthe plants or you watered the plants,
you made a significant contributionthat helped us have that success.
(08:15):
And I would imagine thatmost folks are part-time.
Maybe there's some couple full-time
based on their own capability.
Yeah. The program runs from 9amto 1pm, Monday through Friday.
A couple people have specialprivileges to work the afternoon too,
but people's hours generally rangefrom 13 hours a week to 20 hours
(08:38):
a week.
And that's how the contract with VenturaCounty Behavioral Health is written and
funded as well. So,
idea is that people will want to bemotivated if they're able to move on to
competitive employment. Inour five years of existence,
we've had over 150 adultsparticipate in Growing Works.
Wow! That's a lot.
Yes. And about 30 of them havemoved on to competitive employment.
(09:02):
So, when you say, what doesthat mean? Competitive?
Well, that means like freemarket. Like your job and my job.
Gotcha.
Yeah. That's competitiveis just what we call it.
Here you're not competing so much,you're waiting for a spot to open.
10 have pursued highereducation in one way or another.
And four have been hired byTurning Point Foundation. So,
when you look at our population,
(09:24):
like if you or I weredepressed or had anxiety,
we'd probably go see a psychologist orour family doctor. We might get a med,
but we'd probably keep on going to work,
'cause it wouldn't be severe depression.It'd be comparatively like depression.
That's not who we're working with here.
We're working with people who have reallygotten sidelined by their diagnosis.
(09:46):
In December, we hired one young man.This was his first job. He's 28.
He's brilliant. He's so smart.We all just love him to death.
I knew that he'd been abusedbefore. I knew he'd been abused.
You know what I mean? Just fromhis presentation. And so, he
got his first paycheckright before Christmas.
(10:06):
He was able to buy gifts for hisfamily for the first time with his own
earnings. And it's just a privilegeto work here. We work hard.
We always work hard, but
we get to help people win in a tangibleway that's unlike anything else in any
other job I've had.
That's awesome. Now this,we're here on a special day.
(10:26):
What is happening here onthe campus or the grounds.
The grounds. Yeah, I guess.
Right now.
So, we're having our Spring Fling.We have two festivals a year.
We have Spring Fling andwe have the Fall Festival.
For that we usually bring ina band. It's raining today,
so the band wasn't ableto come. We have vendors.
So there's a cookie baker and todaythere's a bread lady and all kinds of art.
(10:48):
Seasonal craftspeople. And we'reopen to the public for a retail sale.
We're usually not open tothe public because of the whole mental health recovery
aspect. We're covered by ourpeople are covered by HIPAA law.
So we protect their identities so.
They don't interact with the public.
They do on deliveries,but that's about it.
Not everybody chooses to go ondeliveries. It's kind of up to them.
(11:09):
Okay. Are they here today?
We have a few here today. So,
we have eight supported employmentpositions per contract again.
And then we have membersand members are volunteers.
And to become eligiblefor supported employment,
they have to work 108 hoursor volunteer 108 hours.
They have to take a class called WRAP,which is Wellness Recovery Action Plan.
(11:30):
So, if I have a diagnosis and I cankind of read myself in terms of my
symptoms, like maybe I'mnot getting outta bed,
maybe all I'm eating is Ben and Jerry's.Maybe I'm not showering regularly.
Well I'm not doing okay.
So then I can go to my plan that I'vedevised and start taking steps to use
coping skills to get meback in a better place.
(11:51):
Maybe I call my mom andsay I'm not doing okay.
Or maybe I don't call my mom 'causethat would trigger me. You know,
that's individual for person.
But if you can make a plan ahead of timebefore the fact kind of hits the fan,
it helps you to kinda walk out ofthat more easily before you get to the
hospitalization point.
Interesting. I'm thinkingnow about you as the employer
(12:12):
and how you're dealing with these, youknow, you're operating in nursery, right?
You're, it's a for-profitbusiness. And they can maybe, what,
$250,000 last year.
Yeah, we did a quarterof a million last year.
Which is amazing.
Thank you.
And the grounds are beautiful andthere's lots of people here today buying
plants,
but now you're dealing with employeeswho have these mental health challenges.
(12:35):
Not getting outta bed. Eatingonly Ben and Jerry's, you know,
out in the non-mental health world though,
everybody is somewhereon the spectrum, right?
Yeah.
The employer would say, youknow, "See ya, you know,
you didn't show up to work andyou've got to go." You know,
special needs employees. How do youdeal with everybody on that spectrum?
(12:59):
And so and so didn't showup or So-and-so's not doing what they're supposed to
do because of their mental healthchallenges, not because they're, you know,
lazy.
So that's complex.
The Americans withDisabilities Act, the ADA,
says you have to makereasonable accommodation.
We go a number of steps beyond that,
which sometimes feels likeunreasonable accommodation,
(13:22):
but that's the whole point. That'ssupported employment. We are helping,
kind of doing wraparound servicesand helping people and the reality,
because we see most of our people moreoften than their case managers do,
we can read people more quickly.So, if Bobby, who doesn't exist,
but Bobby's not washing his hair,
we know about it far longbefore his case manager does.
(13:44):
There was a case a few yearsago where we had a woman;
and some people are triggered bytime of year because of events
that have happened. So,
we knew that it was a pattern for herto get triggered like in August maybe.
And we saw that her activities ofdaily living, so personal hygiene,
were sliding. There were other indicators.
(14:05):
I was able to reach out to her casemanager and she was working on adding
services. Well at that point,I'm gonna call her Linda.
Linda was really feeling like she wastriggered and she wanted to start using
meth 'cause she had a history of that.
Wow.
So,
Turning Point very appropriatelyhas a no substance abuse
policy.
(14:25):
Sure.
So, we were able to work with Linda toget her to quit before she got fired.
Well, that doesn't sound like a win,
but Linda was able to go to rehab andthen Linda got back and instead of coming
back to Growing Works,
where she had some physical challengesthat made it hard for her to work here,
she started volunteering in anotherTurning Point program and eventually got
hired.
So that's a good example of kind of howworking as a team we're able to help
(14:50):
people to win, even if there'skind of some hiccups along the way.
Right.
Last week I met with a supportiveemployee who has an anxiety disorder,
which makes it hard for him to leavethe house. So, he is chronically late.
He actually got a note from hisdoctor saying he legit has an anxiety
disorder and it's hard forhim to leave the house. So,
(15:11):
we're gonna keep on encouraginghim to try to get here on time.
'Cause that's a great goal.
Right.
He, we'll call him Billy. Billyacknowledged that if he had a regular job,
he would've been toast within twoweeks. Like he knows it, right?
But he can't control it.
And he is on meds and he is trying andthey're working on adjusting his meds.
Billy's great when he is here.We call him the Plant Whisperer.
(15:32):
He has natural abilitywith plants. He's got a...
He's got a green thumb.
, Like green, everything. . But yeah,
it's just really hard forhim to get here on time.
What is the connection betweenGrowing Works and Turning Point
is Growing Works part of Turning Point.
We're one of 14 programs. So,
(15:53):
a lot of what Turning Pointdoes has to do with housing.
We have a veterans transitionalliving project with,
for which we contract with the VA. Wehave an emergency shelter in Ventura,
and we have a number of board and carefacilities as well as the wellness
center, which is adrop-in center in Oxnard.
We're the odd duck inthat we're a business,
but we're serving the same population. So,
(16:16):
we actually do transportation from thewellness center and a lot of the Growing
Works folks receive servicesat the Wellness center as well.
Are the Growing Works employeesliving in a Turning Point facility
or are they living in town?
It varies. It really depends onthe person. Some live with family,
some live independently.
(16:37):
Some do live in Turning Pointfacilities. It all depends on the person.
We're on part of 55 acres thatwere once part of the California,
the Camarillo State Mental Hospitaland before that the Lewis ranches,
like Lewis Road.
Oh wow. And now we're and that'snow been turned into Cal State.
CSUCI.
Channel Islands.
Yeah. For which we get students;GO Dolphins! And they're awesome.
(17:00):
The students are great.So, when that land,
when the Camarillo StateMental Hospital was shut down,
they deeded 55 acres to the countyof Ventura with a designation for
mental health. So, as you come downSouth Lewis Road, you hit Casa Pacifica,
which is mental healthfor kids and families.
There's a construction project forhousing for seniors. There's the Red Barn,
(17:22):
which I think we're gonna talk about.
There's Growing Works for kind ofthis strange white warehouse building.
And then there's three different housingprojects. There's Villa Calleguas,
which is apartments for adultswith mental health challenges.
There's Hillmont House, which iskind of a higher degree of care.
And there's the Casas de Esperanza. Sowe get a bunch of people from over there.
(17:42):
And then we sometimes get people fromHillmont and then Casas and then they
go live elsewhereindependently. But they stay at
Growing Works for employment.
So, you have other activities throughoutthe year. You've got a sensory garden,
you've got a California nativefood event. Tell us about those.
Right. We are open tothe public twice a month.
(18:04):
The second and fourth Saturday I'mfrom 10am to 2pm, always 10am to 2pm.
So if I want plants.
You can come shop then.
At those specific times.
Right. The rest of thetime we won't let you in.
Gotcha.
Like, we're gonna be nice about it,but we're still not gonna let you in.
And wholesale customers cancome in during those times,
but because we're workingwith this population,
we try to get people to call sothat we know that they're coming.
(18:25):
We have workshops,
that's where you're talking about thesensory gardening workshop and edible
plants. And those are in conjunction withthe retail sales. So, every workshop,
every second and fourthSaturday this year,
we either have a workshop or a festival.
Today being Spring Fling and theFall Festival happening in October.
We do a lot of succulentpumpkins and hearts and wreaths.
(18:47):
'Cause people love those. They'refun. And it's also very therapeutic.
We try to make it, youknow, not competitive.
It's not like our class in college orhigh school where they'd be a crit and
people would be mean.
It's just you do you and we're gonnahelp you do it and give you all the
supplies.
Are the employees working onthe topiaries? Or is that...?
No,
it's like I have hiredsomebody do sometimes one of my assistant managers or I
(19:11):
gives the workshops and then we have anumber of different experts like Antonio
Sanchez. who works for Samo Fund isdoing the Edible Plants workshop.
He's a very dynamicspeaker. Check that one out.
I'm doing the workshop in twoweeks about sensory gardening. So,
we have a number of differentexperts coming in to conduct this.
(19:31):
Awesome. So, what does the futurehave in store for Growing Works?
Well, I mentioned the barn nextdoor. The barn is the Red Barn.
The Red Barn is unoccupied. It'scounty owned. This is all county land.
And we're working with the county todevelop an arts and crafts and light food
service project that would be anextension of Growing Works. So,
(19:52):
not everybody has the agility to work orthe desire to work out in the elements,
you know, with the dirt andthe bugs at Growing Works. But
it's well documented thatcreative activities are therapeutic and really helpful
for managing diagnosis and gettingstuff out, expressing yourself.
We're also in this weird, anotherregion of Camarillo, the Oxnard plain.
(20:16):
They grow celery across thestreet. But if I live at Casas,
the Casas are Villa Calleguas next door.
I have to go three miles intoCamarillo to buy milk. Or broccoli.
There's no toiletpaper.
There's no grocery store.
There's nothing out here. But
tourism and food service are one of thetop 10 industries in Ventura County. So,
(20:36):
it'd be very appropriate to train ourpopulation with those skills where they
could go out and get competitiveemployment and you know,
also be able to buy a cookie and coffeein the afternoon after work. Right,
right. Because who doesn't love cookies?
And I also saw you've got some prettybig infrastructure going on here.
You've got a water filtration system.
You've got big tanks outside thatare pumping water from your own well.
(20:58):
It's not actually from our own well,it's from Calleguas. It's gray water.
And runoff water, like the waterthat's in your gutters. So, yes,
we have a $300,000 DRAMM water system.
DRAMM is to water systems, like,
I don't know, like Teslas areto cars. It's the thing. So,
(21:18):
we raised $30,000 last year tofinish the water system. So,
we'll take the gray and runoff water clean it, filter it,
and then be able to water with that waterthe nursery and we'll have irrigation.
That will take a lot of just theimperfection of hand watering out of
that. And we'll run it offour phones. It'll be great.
And when the SantaAna's kick up, you know,
(21:39):
we can water four timesa day if we need to.
'Cause we have this huge water supply.
And moisture just sucks rightout of the ground and yeah,
you gotta start all over again.
As a farmer, it's brutal.
We have plenty of land in back of thenursery to continue expanding what
we grow, including sizes. We'reworking on funding a bobcat,
that's our next big pieceof equipment so we can
(22:03):
move bigger boxes. 15 gallon and 24-inch
box plants are really heavyand it's not safe for people.
You can move a 15 gallon with twoor three men, but it'd be better to,
with a piece of equipment.
We should also do othernursery development stuff and use it as a forklift. So,
we're working on that. Right now,
we sell from Solvang through about LAX and
(22:27):
then the San Gabriel Valley. Wework for the business developer.
He really wants us to getus into SLO and kind of the
south side of LA.
So, you would deliverthe plant stuff distance.
And I understand that you have apretty big client down on the coast.
We do. We sell to TheHuntington for their plant sale.
We sell to Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.We sell to the county of Ventura.
(22:51):
And we'll be at the Countyof Ventura's Earth event.
We sell to UCLA's Botanic Gardenand then a number of landscapers and
independent nurseriesthroughout the region.
You're a for-profit business, butyou're also serving a community in need.
Do you get a lot of your funding from,
must get some funding fromdonations or from the county?
(23:12):
We do. So, we contract withVentura County Behavioral Health.
We're viewed as acommunity-based organization.
We're a contractor withVCBH, that's part of it.
And we run two different budgetsand then we have the nursery. So,
that quarter of a million dollars' worthof sales last year pays for the nursery
program and buys us things likepots and soils and baby plants.
(23:33):
'Cause we use some of our own propagationand then we pay other nurseries,
propagation nurseries to sell as babyplants that we then plant up, you know,
to sell in various sizes.
So, for folks that are you know,
interested in mental health and helpingthat community can they get more
involved?
Absolutely. So, on theTurning Point website,
(23:54):
there's a volunteer form that they canfill out that magically appears in my
inbox once they fill it out.
And then we can talkand get them onboarded.
What is that website?
It's turningpointfoundation.org.
Okay. And is there a GrowingWorks website as well?
There is. The easiest way to get itis through the Turning Point website.
(24:15):
Gotcha. Yeah. And is therea phone number? Email?
That folks can reach out if theywanna come and and buy plants?
Yes. GrowingWorksSales, all spelled out,
@turningpointfoundation.orgis a great email address.
And our number here at the nursery is
805-586-9900.
Awesome. And you guyshave social media too?
(24:37):
We do. We're on Instagram at GrowingWorks tpf and we're also on Facebook.
How long has Growing Works been around?
We were a project at Supervisor LindaParks in 2018 is when we started.
We were modeled after a similar nurseryin San Luis Obispo County called Growing
Grounds. And we've been growingand selling pretty much since then.
(24:58):
And I came from the landscapemaintenance world and
started in 2019. So, I was ata point where I needed a job.
I knew somebody who worked forTurning Point. She said, "Hey,
you should do this." So, I applied,
and I got the job andI've been here since 2019.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
And was the idea of mental health
(25:21):
patients working withplants something new?
Or was that something thatkind of came from another?
So,
there's a whole field of horticulturaltherapy that's often like taking
plants into,
nobody calls 'em psychiatric hospitalsanymore, but into places like that.
Or the VA has horticultural therapy.
(25:41):
You can get certified and degreed in itmore on the East coast than on the West
coast. But there's a national organizationof horticultural therapists (American
Horticultural Therapy Association, AHTA)
The whole nursery modelis far less common.
There's Growing Grounds and SLO andthere's us and that's kind of it for the
state of California.
Wow.
Yeah, we're interesting.We're hyper-nichey.
(26:02):
We grow 60% California native plants,
30% succulents and 10%cool stuff that we like.
'Cause nobody tells me what togrow. So, I watch my numbers.
We use a lot of QuickBooks and Excel.
And we're at just a really great timein history for California native plants.
Southern Californians seem to havecaught on that. Drought is a way of life.
Your lawn sucks up a lot of water. So,
(26:24):
these plants are like naturallyacclimated here, play nice with others,
don't use as much or very much water,are pollinators supportive. And so,
it's kind of like the perfectplants for Southern California.
If somebody wanted to redo theiryard and get more water wise,
'cause that is a thing, could they reachout to Growing Works for, for help?
(26:46):
Yes.
We actually have a designer's list forpeople who we like to work with and who
are well qualified and know whatthey're talking about. Also,
Calleguas gives classes.
They're doing a full series ofclasses on how to change your
irrigations to drip from spray.
And then there's a number and the Mastergardeners in Ventura County also are
(27:06):
full of resources. We have a lotof good neighbors in this pool.
One story about somebodywho was really successful.
A gentleman came from the Casasnext door and he I think he
shot up a 7 Eleven.
Wow.
I don't really know the details. Idon't know if 7 Eleven made him mad.
(27:27):
I don't think it was even a 7Eleven per se, but he was angry,
clearly anger managementissues. So, in Ventura County,
if you commit a serious crime and youhave a mental health diagnosis and an
attorney to help you can go to a mentalhealth court instead of the regular
courts. Ventura
County Behavioral Health and Probationdevise a plan to keep you outta jail,
(27:48):
but you have to do whateverthey say. So he did. And
he started taking his classes and doingeverything that he was supposed to do at
the Casas and anger management classes.
I think there were some like alcohol andnot driving classes, things like that.
And came over as a volunteer to us.
And this was a man with a lot of physicalstrength. He was just really dynamic.
(28:11):
We'll call him Andy. If I needed somethinglike busted down, Andy could do it.
He, you know, like, that'sjust who he is. Right.
And one day we could tell that Andywas not doing okay. And so, I was like,
"Andy, what's going on?" Well,
his understanding was that probation hadsaid 12 months that he had to be around
for 12 months,
and Andy wanted to move to another county'cause his father was failing and he
(28:33):
wanted to go care. Well,
I think Probation actually said 12 to18 and he might've only heard 12 and now
they were saying 18. And he wasreally struggling with that. So,
we sat down in my office, andwe started writing letters. So,
I wrote a letter on behalf of Andy."Sam, look, Andy's been great.
Andy's been a model supported employee.You know, I asked Andy to do something,
(28:54):
he does it, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah." So,
we had that letter and then wewrote a letter together. Same thing.
Or I think it was more from Andy'sperspective. "You asked me to do this,
I did this. You wanted me to takethese meds, I take these meds,
you want me to do anger managementclasses. I've done 'em point by point.
Five point." And so, weprinted out the letters,
multiple copies to giveto the judge and we
(29:17):
waited and nothing happened. I mean,nothing changed. But Andy changed.
'cause I don't think anybody had comealongside Andy before and helped him
advocate for himself in a really healthy,appropriate way. Speaking truth. But,
you know, respectfully. I mean, notshooting up the 7 Eleven. And so,
Andy's gone, like Andy graduated, hecompleted all the terms of his probation.
(29:41):
We lost him as an employee, whichwe were sad 'cause Andy was awesome.
But he moved to the countyto take care of his dad.
That's a great success story.
Yeah. We still miss Andy. Every once ina while, in a while a project comes up,
we're like, "Andy!" You know?
That's awesome.
Yeah. That's a little hard partof the job seeing people go,
but that's means thatthey're succeeding too.
(30:02):
Well, wonderful story. Thank you. So,Jenn Rodriguez with Growing Works,
thank you so much for being ourguest on this edition of Farm Talk.
We've loved having you and learningabout all that you and your organization
does.
Thank you.
Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Andof course, we wanna thank our sponsor,
Opus Escrow. And be sure to tune in nexttime for the next edition of Farm Talk.
Today on Farm Talk, we're talkingabout cultivating mental health.
Hi friends. It's Paul Ward here, andwelcome to this episode of Farm Talk.
I'm very excited.
Today we are talking about a connectionbetween farming and mental health.
And who better to talk about it thanour special guest today? Jen Rodriguez,
the program manager with GrowingWorks. Jen, welcome to Farm Talk.
(00:22):
Thank you.
Absolutely. And of course, we wannathank our sponsor, Opus Escrow. So, Jen,
tell us about Growing Works andits connection to the mental health
community.
So, Growing Works is a program of TurningPoint Foundation and Turning Point
supports adults with mental healthchallenges, homelessness issues,
and substance abuse here in VenturaCounty. So, we're one of 14 programs,
(00:46):
but we're the only for-profit businessand the only like business-business
in that we're a wholesale nurseryand a mental health recovery program.
And our slogan is actually,"Cultivating Mental Health.
"So that's what we try to do here.
Very cool. Cultivating mentalhealth. So, who works here?
Is it anybody that wants to, is itfolks that have mental challenges?
(01:10):
Yes. It's kind of the answer toyour first question is yes and no.
Because we have support employees andwe have members who are volunteer corps,
and all of those people are referredfrom Ventura County Behavioral Health.
With whom we contractfor the recovery program.
And then we also havecommunity volunteers. So,
you or your neighbor or yourwife's cousin's aunt could go onto
(01:34):
the Turning Point Foundation websiteand fill out a volunteer form.
We meet all of our volunteers 'cause wewanna make sure that Growing Works is
always a super safe placein every aspect. You know,
we all have that friend or neighbor whowants to tell us how to fix our life.
Well, they're not really welcome here.
I keep my people safe and keep GrowingWorks really, really positive. And so,
(01:57):
everybody's kind of checked to make surethat they're gonna be a great fit and
supportive of our peopleand of our mission. So yeah,
we then we onboard peopleand they get to work.
And a stigma about mentalhealth that seems to be
dissipating a little bit. And
(02:18):
who are the folks, I guess clarifying,
who are the folks that work here in termsof their mental health challenges and
how would they be, I guess benefited,right? Because you're working with nature.
Yes.
And which is kind of apeaceful feeling. Right?
And the world is stressful.
Yes. This is a very peacefulenvironment. You know,
we have the backdrop ofthe Santa Monica Mountains.
(02:41):
There's actually a pack ofcoyotes that lives in our back 40.
Oh, wow.
Some people find that scary.Many of us find it fun.
There's a lot of birds here.We have certain snakes.
But there's just a very peacefulvibe and a lot of nature.
A couple years ago,
I actually found a study about farmersand how they get depressed less than
other professions. And I didn't knowanything about farming, you know,
(03:02):
that's kind of wild. And farming's hard.
It is hard.
Like today we can't control the weather.
We can't control the weather on any day.
And you just do your best with allthese really challenging variables.
I think there's a micrological aspect. So,
fungi and bacteria in the soil actuallyhelp as a natural antidepressant.
Interesting.
That's a total sidebar.
(03:24):
Our people come from referral fromVentura County Behavioral Health. So,
they're all receiving services.
They're also all in a place where they'rereally owning their diagnosis. So,
when people, the onset,
or usually identification of a seriousmental health diagnosis is in late teens
to early twenties.
And often because that kind of evolvesover time and people might not have a
(03:47):
major psychotic event for years.
It can take a long time to getall that kind of dialed in,
like properly diagnosed,properly medicated,
and on the path to recovery. So,
most of our people are kindof a few years down the road,
so they're receiving services.They're medication compliant. So,
they're on meds and they've received agood diagnosis and they're working at
(04:10):
getting to a place in their lives wherethey're managing their diagnosis and
having life outside of the diagnosis. So,
they range from twenties to, Ihave one gentleman who's excellent,
who's in his sixties. They haveall kinds of different diagnoses.
We see a lot of people withschizophrenia, bipolar disorder,
severe depression, anxietydisorders, OCD, eating disorders. So,
(04:34):
there's really a full range.
And that actually also speaks tohow we treat people as individuals.
Not everybody wants to water.
Some people wanna drag hose and waterand keep the plants alive. Thank you.
But that's not for everybody.
Some people don't have like thephysical strength and I water. Usually,
I feel it the next day. Like it'sa Tylenol day. Just 'cause it,
they're so heavy. We have one gentleman,the gentleman I spoke with before,
(04:58):
who pulls most of our orders. He'sgreat at it. He loves driving the Gator,
which is a little electric vehicle.
And he also was on the streetsfor over two decades. As
often happens during that time,he was attacked on the streets.
Like the living on the streets beinghomeless is it's very dangerous.
(05:18):
Right. Whether you're male orfemale, kind of doesn't matter.
H e's critical to ourbusiness as well, or a team.
He has a buddy who
also describes being in a cycle ofsubstance abuse and addiction and
incarceration. And then he wouldget clean and sober and kind of,
it started all over again. Andthat was for a number of decades.
(05:39):
They're best buddies. In America, a lotof men aren't great at having friends.
There's this kind of weirddisconnect for American males.
Like it's less okay than, you know, women.
It's okay if women have a lot of friends;
they're so tight and they reallyset the tone for the group.
They're so leading by examplein this tight friendship.
And they're reallypurposeful when we have,
we have newbies that kind ofbringing them into the fold.
(05:59):
And that all works against the isolationthat's so common in mental health.
That stigma contributes to, Iam a two-time cancer survivor.
Oh, wow.
I know firsthand, thank you, how isolatingany physical illness is. You know, if
you have cancer, you kind of drop outtayour own life. You might not work,
or you might have to go to alot of doctor's appointments.
(06:21):
And the whole pattern andschedule of your life changes. So,
there's less time to, you know,
eat cookies watching TV orhang out with your friends.
Mental illness takes thatto like 10 more degrees,
'cause now people see youas a freak. Or, you know,
mentally defective. I thinkis a common stereotype.
And so that leads to isolation. Andthen people can self-isolate too.
(06:44):
'Cause If you don't trust your mindand with schizophrenia in particular,
there might be voices in yourhead. That you don't know.
You can't discern whetherthat's like okay or not.
It isolates people even more. So,
just socialization and being part of agroup is a big part of Growing Works.
We're also super purposefulabout celebrating
(07:05):
victories and achievements.
L week I think we had pizzaand salad and ice cream
cake and pasta,
because last month March wasour biggest sales month ever.
Oh wow.
So, sometimes it might seem alittle forced or a little made up,
but when you're working with peoplewho've had so many failures, you know,
they might have family failure. Theymay not parent their kids anymore. Some
(07:29):
are college educated, but manycouldn't make it that far.
They might not have evengraduated high school.
And serious mental illness putsa real strain on families. So,
one gentleman after working at GrowingWorks for a few years was able to get
back in contact with his familyof origin. But it's just hard.
It's hard for everybody. So,
if we can kind of refill thatbank of success in a very
(07:54):
corporate but also individualway, it's all good. You know,
it's all moving peoplein the right direction.
And we all feel good when we'vewon, and we've achieved something.
And we're just again,
really purposeful about saying whetheryou delivered the plants on the truck,
went on the delivery, or you transplantedthe plants or you watered the plants,
you made a significant contributionthat helped us have that success.
(08:15):
And I would imagine thatmost folks are part-time.
Maybe there's some couple full-time
based on their own capability.
Yeah. The program runs from 9amto 1pm, Monday through Friday.
A couple people have specialprivileges to work the afternoon too,
but people's hours generally rangefrom 13 hours a week to 20 hours
(08:38):
a week.
And that's how the contract with VenturaCounty Behavioral Health is written and
funded as well. So,
idea is that people will want to bemotivated if they're able to move on to
competitive employment. Inour five years of existence,
we've had over 150 adultsparticipate in Growing Works.
Wow! That's a lot.
Yes. And about 30 of them havemoved on to competitive employment.
(09:02):
So, when you say, what doesthat mean? Competitive?
Well, that means like freemarket. Like your job and my job.
Gotcha.
Yeah. That's competitiveis just what we call it.
Here you're not competing so much,you're waiting for a spot to open.
10 have pursued highereducation in one way or another.
And four have been hired byTurning Point Foundation. So,
when you look at our population,
(09:24):
like if you or I weredepressed or had anxiety,
we'd probably go see a psychologist orour family doctor. We might get a med,
but we'd probably keep on going to work,
'cause it wouldn't be severe depression.It'd be comparatively like depression.
That's not who we're working with here.
We're working with people who have reallygotten sidelined by their diagnosis.
(09:46):
In December, we hired one young man.This was his first job. He's 28.
He's brilliant. He's so smart.We all just love him to death.
I knew that he'd been abusedbefore. I knew he'd been abused.
You know what I mean? Just fromhis presentation. And so, he
got his first paycheckright before Christmas.
(10:06):
He was able to buy gifts for hisfamily for the first time with his own
earnings. And it's just a privilegeto work here. We work hard.
We always work hard, but
we get to help people win in a tangibleway that's unlike anything else in any
other job I've had.
That's awesome. Now this,we're here on a special day.
(10:26):
What is happening here onthe campus or the grounds.
The grounds. Yeah, I guess.
Right now.
So, we're having our Spring Fling.We have two festivals a year.
We have Spring Fling andwe have the Fall Festival.
For that we usually bring ina band. It's raining today,
so the band wasn't ableto come. We have vendors.
So there's a cookie baker and todaythere's a bread lady and all kinds of art.
(10:48):
Seasonal craftspeople. And we'reopen to the public for a retail sale.
We're usually not open tothe public because of the whole mental health recovery
aspect. We're covered by ourpeople are covered by HIPAA law.
So we protect their identities so.
They don't interact with the public.
They do on deliveries,but that's about it.
Not everybody chooses to go ondeliveries. It's kind of up to them.
(11:09):
Okay. Are they here today?
We have a few here today. So,
we have eight supported employmentpositions per contract again.
And then we have membersand members are volunteers.
And to become eligiblefor supported employment,
they have to work 108 hoursor volunteer 108 hours.
They have to take a class called WRAP,which is Wellness Recovery Action Plan.
(11:30):
So, if I have a diagnosis and I cankind of read myself in terms of my
symptoms, like maybe I'mnot getting outta bed,
maybe all I'm eating is Ben and Jerry's.Maybe I'm not showering regularly.
Well I'm not doing okay.
So then I can go to my plan that I'vedevised and start taking steps to use
coping skills to get meback in a better place.
(11:51):
Maybe I call my mom andsay I'm not doing okay.
Or maybe I don't call my mom 'causethat would trigger me. You know,
that's individual for person.
But if you can make a plan ahead of timebefore the fact kind of hits the fan,
it helps you to kinda walk out ofthat more easily before you get to the
hospitalization point.
Interesting. I'm thinkingnow about you as the employer
(12:12):
and how you're dealing with these, youknow, you're operating in nursery, right?
You're, it's a for-profitbusiness. And they can maybe, what,
$250,000 last year.
Yeah, we did a quarterof a million last year.
Which is amazing.
Thank you.
And the grounds are beautiful andthere's lots of people here today buying
plants,
but now you're dealing with employeeswho have these mental health challenges.
(12:35):
Not getting outta bed. Eatingonly Ben and Jerry's, you know,
out in the non-mental health world though,
everybody is somewhereon the spectrum, right?
Yeah.
The employer would say, youknow, "See ya, you know,
you didn't show up to work andyou've got to go." You know,
special needs employees. How do youdeal with everybody on that spectrum?
(12:59):
And so and so didn't showup or So-and-so's not doing what they're supposed to
do because of their mental healthchallenges, not because they're, you know,
lazy.
So that's complex.
The Americans withDisabilities Act, the ADA,
says you have to makereasonable accommodation.
We go a number of steps beyond that,
which sometimes feels likeunreasonable accommodation,
(13:22):
but that's the whole point. That'ssupported employment. We are helping,
kind of doing wraparound servicesand helping people and the reality,
because we see most of our people moreoften than their case managers do,
we can read people more quickly.So, if Bobby, who doesn't exist,
but Bobby's not washing his hair,
we know about it far longbefore his case manager does.
(13:44):
There was a case a few yearsago where we had a woman;
and some people are triggered bytime of year because of events
that have happened. So,
we knew that it was a pattern for herto get triggered like in August maybe.
And we saw that her activities ofdaily living, so personal hygiene,
were sliding. There were other indicators.
(14:05):
I was able to reach out to her casemanager and she was working on adding
services. Well at that point,I'm gonna call her Linda.
Linda was really feeling like she wastriggered and she wanted to start using
meth 'cause she had a history of that.
Wow.
So,
Turning Point very appropriatelyhas a no substance abuse
policy.
(14:25):
Sure.
So, we were able to work with Linda toget her to quit before she got fired.
Well, that doesn't sound like a win,
but Linda was able to go to rehab andthen Linda got back and instead of coming
back to Growing Works,
where she had some physical challengesthat made it hard for her to work here,
she started volunteering in anotherTurning Point program and eventually got
hired.
So that's a good example of kind of howworking as a team we're able to help
(14:50):
people to win, even if there'skind of some hiccups along the way.
Right.
Last week I met with a supportiveemployee who has an anxiety disorder,
which makes it hard for him to leavethe house. So, he is chronically late.
He actually got a note from hisdoctor saying he legit has an anxiety
disorder and it's hard forhim to leave the house. So,
(15:11):
we're gonna keep on encouraginghim to try to get here on time.
'Cause that's a great goal.
Right.
He, we'll call him Billy. Billyacknowledged that if he had a regular job,
he would've been toast within twoweeks. Like he knows it, right?
But he can't control it.
And he is on meds and he is trying andthey're working on adjusting his meds.
Billy's great when he is here.We call him the Plant Whisperer.
(15:32):
He has natural abilitywith plants. He's got a...
He's got a green thumb.
it's just really hard forhim to get here on time.
What is the connection betweenGrowing Works and Turning Point
is Growing Works part of Turning Point.
We're one of 14 programs. So,
(15:53):
a lot of what Turning Pointdoes has to do with housing.
We have a veterans transitionalliving project with,
for which we contract with the VA. Wehave an emergency shelter in Ventura,
and we have a number of board and carefacilities as well as the wellness
center, which is adrop-in center in Oxnard.
We're the odd duck inthat we're a business,
but we're serving the same population. So,
(16:16):
we actually do transportation from thewellness center and a lot of the Growing
Works folks receive servicesat the Wellness center as well.
Are the Growing Works employeesliving in a Turning Point facility
or are they living in town?
It varies. It really depends onthe person. Some live with family,
some live independently.
(16:37):
Some do live in Turning Pointfacilities. It all depends on the person.
We're on part of 55 acres thatwere once part of the California,
the Camarillo State Mental Hospitaland before that the Lewis ranches,
like Lewis Road.
Oh wow. And now we're and that'snow been turned into Cal State.
CSUCI.
Channel Islands.
Yeah. For which we get students;GO Dolphins! And they're awesome.
(17:00):
The students are great.So, when that land,
when the Camarillo StateMental Hospital was shut down,
they deeded 55 acres to the countyof Ventura with a designation for
mental health. So, as you come downSouth Lewis Road, you hit Casa Pacifica,
which is mental healthfor kids and families.
There's a construction project forhousing for seniors. There's the Red Barn,
(17:22):
which I think we're gonna talk about.
There's Growing Works for kind ofthis strange white warehouse building.
And then there's three different housingprojects. There's Villa Calleguas,
which is apartments for adultswith mental health challenges.
There's Hillmont House, which iskind of a higher degree of care.
And there's the Casas de Esperanza. Sowe get a bunch of people from over there.
(17:42):
And then we sometimes get people fromHillmont and then Casas and then they
go live elsewhereindependently. But they stay at
Growing Works for employment.
So, you have other activities throughoutthe year. You've got a sensory garden,
you've got a California nativefood event. Tell us about those.
Right. We are open tothe public twice a month.
(18:04):
The second and fourth Saturday I'mfrom 10am to 2pm, always 10am to 2pm.
So if I want plants.
You can come shop then.
At those specific times.
Right. The rest of thetime we won't let you in.
Gotcha.
Like, we're gonna be nice about it,but we're still not gonna let you in.
And wholesale customers cancome in during those times,
but because we're workingwith this population,
we try to get people to call sothat we know that they're coming.
(18:25):
We have workshops,
that's where you're talking about thesensory gardening workshop and edible
plants. And those are in conjunction withthe retail sales. So, every workshop,
every second and fourthSaturday this year,
we either have a workshop or a festival.
Today being Spring Fling and theFall Festival happening in October.
We do a lot of succulentpumpkins and hearts and wreaths.
(18:47):
'Cause people love those. They'refun. And it's also very therapeutic.
We try to make it, youknow, not competitive.
It's not like our class in college orhigh school where they'd be a crit and
people would be mean.
It's just you do you and we're gonnahelp you do it and give you all the
supplies.
Are the employees working onthe topiaries? Or is that...?
No,
it's like I have hiredsomebody do sometimes one of my assistant managers or I
(19:11):
gives the workshops and then we have anumber of different experts like Antonio
Sanchez. who works for Samo Fund isdoing the Edible Plants workshop.
He's a very dynamicspeaker. Check that one out.
I'm doing the workshop in twoweeks about sensory gardening. So,
we have a number of differentexperts coming in to conduct this.
(19:31):
Awesome. So, what does the futurehave in store for Growing Works?
Well, I mentioned the barn nextdoor. The barn is the Red Barn.
The Red Barn is unoccupied. It'scounty owned. This is all county land.
And we're working with the county todevelop an arts and crafts and light food
service project that would be anextension of Growing Works. So,
(19:52):
not everybody has the agility to work orthe desire to work out in the elements,
you know, with the dirt andthe bugs at Growing Works. But
it's well documented thatcreative activities are therapeutic and really helpful
for managing diagnosis and gettingstuff out, expressing yourself.
We're also in this weird, anotherregion of Camarillo, the Oxnard plain.
(20:16):
They grow celery across thestreet. But if I live at Casas,
the Casas are Villa Calleguas next door.
I have to go three miles intoCamarillo to buy milk. Or broccoli.
There's no toiletpaper.
There's no grocery store.
There's nothing out here. But
tourism and food service are one of thetop 10 industries in Ventura County. So,
(20:36):
it'd be very appropriate to train ourpopulation with those skills where they
could go out and get competitiveemployment and you know,
also be able to buy a cookie and coffeein the afternoon after work. Right,
right. Because who doesn't love cookies?
And I also saw you've got some prettybig infrastructure going on here.
You've got a water filtration system.
You've got big tanks outside thatare pumping water from your own well.
(20:58):
It's not actually from our own well,it's from Calleguas. It's gray water.
And runoff water, like the waterthat's in your gutters. So, yes,
we have a $300,000 DRAMM water system.
DRAMM is to water systems, like,
I don't know, like Teslas areto cars. It's the thing. So,
(21:18):
we raised $30,000 last year tofinish the water system. So,
we'll take the gray and runoff water clean it, filter it,
and then be able to water with that waterthe nursery and we'll have irrigation.
That will take a lot of just theimperfection of hand watering out of
that. And we'll run it offour phones. It'll be great.
And when the SantaAna's kick up, you know,
(21:39):
we can water four timesa day if we need to.
'Cause we have this huge water supply.
And moisture just sucks rightout of the ground and yeah,
you gotta start all over again.
As a farmer, it's brutal.
We have plenty of land in back of thenursery to continue expanding what
we grow, including sizes. We'reworking on funding a bobcat,
that's our next big pieceof equipment so we can
(22:03):
move bigger boxes. 15 gallon and 24-inch
box plants are really heavyand it's not safe for people.
You can move a 15 gallon with twoor three men, but it'd be better to,
with a piece of equipment.
We should also do othernursery development stuff and use it as a forklift. So,
we're working on that. Right now,
we sell from Solvang through about LAX and
(22:27):
then the San Gabriel Valley. Wework for the business developer.
He really wants us to getus into SLO and kind of the
south side of LA.
So, you would deliverthe plant stuff distance.
And I understand that you have apretty big client down on the coast.
We do. We sell to TheHuntington for their plant sale.
We sell to Santa Barbara Botanic Garden.We sell to the county of Ventura.
(22:51):
And we'll be at the Countyof Ventura's Earth event.
We sell to UCLA's Botanic Gardenand then a number of landscapers and
independent nurseriesthroughout the region.
You're a for-profit business, butyou're also serving a community in need.
Do you get a lot of your funding from,
must get some funding fromdonations or from the county?
(23:12):
We do. So, we contract withVentura County Behavioral Health.
We're viewed as acommunity-based organization.
We're a contractor withVCBH, that's part of it.
And we run two different budgetsand then we have the nursery. So,
that quarter of a million dollars' worthof sales last year pays for the nursery
program and buys us things likepots and soils and baby plants.
(23:33):
'Cause we use some of our own propagationand then we pay other nurseries,
propagation nurseries to sell as babyplants that we then plant up, you know,
to sell in various sizes.
So, for folks that are you know,
interested in mental health and helpingthat community can they get more
involved?
Absolutely. So, on theTurning Point website,
(23:54):
there's a volunteer form that they canfill out that magically appears in my
inbox once they fill it out.
And then we can talkand get them onboarded.
What is that website?
It's turningpointfoundation.org.
Okay. And is there a GrowingWorks website as well?
There is. The easiest way to get itis through the Turning Point website.
(24:15):
Gotcha. Yeah. And is therea phone number? Email?
That folks can reach out if theywanna come and and buy plants?
Yes. GrowingWorksSales, all spelled out,
@turningpointfoundation.orgis a great email address.
And our number here at the nursery is
805-586-9900.
Awesome. And you guyshave social media too?
(24:37):
We do. We're on Instagram at GrowingWorks tpf and we're also on Facebook.
How long has Growing Works been around?
We were a project at Supervisor LindaParks in 2018 is when we started.
We were modeled after a similar nurseryin San Luis Obispo County called Growing
Grounds. And we've been growingand selling pretty much since then.
(24:58):
And I came from the landscapemaintenance world and
started in 2019. So, I was ata point where I needed a job.
I knew somebody who worked forTurning Point. She said, "Hey,
you should do this." So, I applied,
and I got the job andI've been here since 2019.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
And was the idea of mental health
(25:21):
patients working withplants something new?
Or was that something thatkind of came from another?
So,
there's a whole field of horticulturaltherapy that's often like taking
plants into,
nobody calls 'em psychiatric hospitalsanymore, but into places like that.
Or the VA has horticultural therapy.
(25:41):
You can get certified and degreed in itmore on the East coast than on the West
coast. But there's a national organizationof horticultural therapists (American
Horticultural Therapy Association, AHTA)
The whole nursery modelis far less common.
There's Growing Grounds and SLO andthere's us and that's kind of it for the
state of California.
Wow.
Yeah, we're interesting.We're hyper-nichey.
(26:02):
We grow 60% California native plants,
30% succulents and 10%cool stuff that we like.
'Cause nobody tells me what togrow. So, I watch my numbers.
We use a lot of QuickBooks and Excel.
And we're at just a really great timein history for California native plants.
Southern Californians seem to havecaught on that. Drought is a way of life.
Your lawn sucks up a lot of water. So,
(26:24):
these plants are like naturallyacclimated here, play nice with others,
don't use as much or very much water,are pollinators supportive. And so,
it's kind of like the perfectplants for Southern California.
If somebody wanted to redo theiryard and get more water wise,
'cause that is a thing, could they reachout to Growing Works for, for help?
(26:46):
Yes.
We actually have a designer's list forpeople who we like to work with and who
are well qualified and know whatthey're talking about. Also,
Calleguas gives classes.
They're doing a full series ofclasses on how to change your
irrigations to drip from spray.
And then there's a number and the Mastergardeners in Ventura County also are
(27:06):
full of resources. We have a lotof good neighbors in this pool.
One story about somebodywho was really successful.
A gentleman came from the Casasnext door and he I think he
shot up a 7 Eleven.
Wow.
I don't really know the details. Idon't know if 7 Eleven made him mad.
(27:27):
I don't think it was even a 7Eleven per se, but he was angry,
clearly anger managementissues. So, in Ventura County,
if you commit a serious crime and youhave a mental health diagnosis and an
attorney to help you can go to a mentalhealth court instead of the regular
courts. Ventura
County Behavioral Health and Probationdevise a plan to keep you outta jail,
(27:48):
but you have to do whateverthey say. So he did. And
he started taking his classes and doingeverything that he was supposed to do at
the Casas and anger management classes.
I think there were some like alcohol andnot driving classes, things like that.
And came over as a volunteer to us.
And this was a man with a lot of physicalstrength. He was just really dynamic.
(28:11):
We'll call him Andy. If I needed somethinglike busted down, Andy could do it.
He, you know, like, that'sjust who he is. Right.
And one day we could tell that Andywas not doing okay. And so, I was like,
"Andy, what's going on?" Well,
his understanding was that probation hadsaid 12 months that he had to be around
for 12 months,
and Andy wanted to move to another county'cause his father was failing and he
(28:33):
wanted to go care. Well,
I think Probation actually said 12 to18 and he might've only heard 12 and now
they were saying 18. And he wasreally struggling with that. So,
we sat down in my office, andwe started writing letters. So,
I wrote a letter on behalf of Andy."Sam, look, Andy's been great.
Andy's been a model supported employee.You know, I asked Andy to do something,
(28:54):
he does it, blah, blah,blah, blah, blah." So,
we had that letter and then wewrote a letter together. Same thing.
Or I think it was more from Andy'sperspective. "You asked me to do this,
I did this. You wanted me to takethese meds, I take these meds,
you want me to do anger managementclasses. I've done 'em point by point.
Five point." And so, weprinted out the letters,
multiple copies to giveto the judge and we
(29:17):
waited and nothing happened. I mean,nothing changed. But Andy changed.
'cause I don't think anybody had comealongside Andy before and helped him
advocate for himself in a really healthy,appropriate way. Speaking truth. But,
you know, respectfully. I mean, notshooting up the 7 Eleven. And so,
Andy's gone, like Andy graduated, hecompleted all the terms of his probation.
(29:41):
We lost him as an employee, whichwe were sad 'cause Andy was awesome.
But he moved to the countyto take care of his dad.
That's a great success story.
Yeah. We still miss Andy. Every once ina while, in a while a project comes up,
we're like, "Andy!" You know?
That's awesome.
Yeah. That's a little hard partof the job seeing people go,
but that's means thatthey're succeeding too.
(30:02):
Well, wonderful story. Thank you. So,Jenn Rodriguez with Growing Works,
thank you so much for being ourguest on this edition of Farm Talk.
We've loved having you and learningabout all that you and your organization
does.
Thank you.
Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Andof course, we wanna thank our sponsor,
Opus Escrow. And be sure to tune in nexttime for the next edition of Farm Talk.
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