DUG: 2023 Year in Review

2023 was a pretty great year.?

We celebrated 45 years, 200 gardens, and 20 food forests.?

We established a framework to more fully explain what DUG does - DUG cultivates food, community and climate resilience on a human scale, Our theory of change.*

• Results of our three year randomized CAPS study were published in the Lancet , demonstrating an increase in fiber intake and a reduction in depression and anxiety as a result of community gardening specifically.
• We continued to “Dig Deeper in Denver” with our 3rd class of mighty DUG Corps supporting gardens, gardeners and DUG staff, the Baseline Infrastructure Initiative (BII) , ensuring all DUG gardens are resourced equitably to thrive, and a deepened commitment to our Garden Leaders with enhanced educational and social programming.
• The Etkin Family Food Forest Inititaive is thriving with 20 food forests expanding Denver’s tree canopy.?

• The Therapeutic Garden Initiaitive is developing a playbook for activating community gardens therapeutically for kids with special needs.?

• We installed over 250 sustainability features in our gardens thanks to HDR .????
• We continued to spark curiosity in our youngest learners through garden clubs and teacher cohorts.
• The not-so-tiny learners flocked to our workshops , community compost education and the permaculture design course .
• Food Access thrived as Grow a Garden introduced mentorships and our dream of a culturally inclusive seed library came to life.???
• Internally, we invested heavily in DUG with a salesforce and data upgrade, we doubled our team and capacity, we grew our board and established, for the first time, an endowment to ensure DUG’S work endures.???
• We finished the year with an extraordinary visit to Australia to see how their community garden and food forest systems work and share DUG's model at the Urban Agriculture Forum.

That’s a year. And… we’re ready for 2024. To do it all again. And more.?

• As we continue to Dig Deeper in Denver, we’ll embark on our first ever US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) partnership in Denver’s West Area.?
• We’ve launched the Urban Garden Project to help grow, support and energize the worldwide community garden movement.??
• Finally, we’ll be building and activating two extra exciting gardens - the 17th Street Garden , at Whole Foods Union Station and 48th & Julian , in partnership with Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval and Denver Parks and Recreation .

Thank you for all you’ve done to support our work.?

* Thanks to ResultsLab and Social Venture Partners Denver for helping us develop our Theory of Change.?