Help Grow More Places like Ms. Wanda’s Orchard - Where Food, Second Chances, and Community Flourish

Your gift today plants the next little orchard. Thanks to a generous match, every dollar you give is doubled!

Ms Wanda and Ilyse Putz admire blackberries

A Story of Growth That Can’t Be Measured in Pounds of Fruit Alone

In South Dallas, there’s a place where the harvest is measured in warm hugs, fresh starts, and second chances.

At Cornerstone Community Garden (supported by The Giving Grove program at Grow North Texas), orchard steward Ms. Wanda greets every visitor with a radiant smile and a laugh that rolls through the garden rows like sunshine.

“Come on in,” she says. “Let me show you what we’ve got growing.”

What’s growing there is more than food.

It’s belonging. Opportunity. Pride. Healing.

It’s people rediscovering purpose as their hands find the soil.

Some volunteers are unhoused.

Some are returning home from incarceration.

All are welcomed by Wanda, who sees the potential in every person as clearly as she sees the ripening blackberries.

All year, Cornerstone’s garden and young orchard have become a space where neighbors grow together: feeding families, teaching children, and helping a whole community breathe easier.

And your support makes places like this possible.

Give Now

Because of donors like you, 835,000 people now live within walking distance of a Giving Grove orchard. And that number is growing fast!

Will you help us reach 1 million people?

This year alone, the Giving Grove network expanded to 682 orchard sites, adding hundreds of fruit trees, berry brambles, and gathering spaces created for and cared for by their communities.

These orchards do more than feed people. They:

Provide free, holistically grown fruit each year
Transform vacant lots into safe, welcoming green space
Lower urban temperatures and clean the air

Increase biodiversity, supporting pollinators and wildlife

Strengthen social connections across generations

Your gift plants all of this — not just trees, but long-lasting change.

Your gift today is DOUBLED!

Thanks to a group of generous donors, every contribution is matched dollar-for-dollar up to $50,000.

That means:

$100 becomes 4 fruit trees
$250 becomes 2 Steward Start-Up Kits
$500 becomes 20 Fruit Trees & supplies

And those gifts turn into:

fruit trees planted in neighborhoods that have long lacked access to fresh food
lifelong orchards rooted in community leadership
spaces where kids learn, neighbors gather, and people like Stephen and Valentine, two of Ms. Wanda’s regular volunteers, find meaningful, steady work as they rebuild their lives

“We’re not just growing food. We’re growing people.””

— Ms. Wanda, Dallas Orchard Steward

This is the heart of every Giving Grove orchard and the heart of what your donation makes possible.

When you give today, you help create more orchards like Wanda’s: places rooted in dignity, joy, and opportunity. Places that feed families and strengthen neighborhoods. Places that change lives.

Thank you!

Thank you for believing that every neighborhood deserves access to fresh food, green space, and community.

Thank you for helping us plant orchards that will grow for decades.

And thank you for standing with stewards like Ms. Wanda, who remind us that when you plant a tree or offer someone a chance, you never know just how far those roots will spread.