What is a Garden Tower and how can it become a sustainable food source for families and individuals around the world?
The unfortunate reality is that millions of families across the world have inadequate access to a secure source of food. At the USANA Foundation, we’re always looking for innovative, sustainable solutions to tackle malnutrition and empower families to feed, nourish, and provide for themselves for years to come—solutions like USANA Garden Towers.
Every person should have access to secure sources of quality, nutritious food. This principle is at the core of everything we do at the USANA Foundation and drives us to reach every food-insecure community possible. This is why we have programs like Garden Towers!
Read: What is a Garden Tower and How Can You Maintain One at Home?
Garden Towers are essentially vertical gardens. They’re a low-cost, self-sustaining method of planting multiple food crops in a single source, suited for all areas of the world. Made from a long-lasting, durable material, each Tower can hold up to 120 plants and provide five or more nutritious meals a week for a family of six!
Here are a few recent stories from our partners in Guatemala who directly reach food insecure families and empower them with their own sustainable food source via Garden Towers. Stories like these are why we exist to serve families around the world and provide life-changing hope with quality nutrition.
Pedro and Francisca get their first Garden Tower
Meet Pedro and his wife, Francisca. They live in San Andrés Semetabaj, Guatemala, a Sololá municipality in the west part of the country.
He is 75 years old and has worked in the fields all his life, and together, they raised 7 children. Francisca has been taking care of her family since they got married more than 50 years ago.
When Pedro first learned about the Garden Tower program from a student of Kikoten, he knew it was perfect for his family and was certain he’d take care of it and benefit greatly from a Tower at their home. His daughter contacted Guatemala’s project manager who helps the USANA Foundation understand the needs of the community and asked how her family could get a Garden Tower for her parents.
Thanks to the generous donations of our supporters, we were able to make it happen for them!
Our partners in Guatemala installed a Garden Tower for Pedro and Francisca in early May, and they can’t wait to watch their food grow and care for their garden.
Project managers report that the couple is so happy and grateful. “Our garden tower is a treasure,” they said.
Pedro and his family get their own Garden Tower
Meet Pedro Morales and his wife. He’s a community leader in Panimatzalam, another Sololá municipality in the west part of Guatemala.
For his entire life, Pedro has worked to help improve his community, and he sees how much Garden Towers will help provide sustainable, nutritious food for years to come. In the past, Pedro has worked for UNICEF, The Ministry of Agriculture in Guatemala, and in local government, so he knows what to look for to genuinely improve the area.
Pedro saw the benefits of having individual gardens in each family’s home and has spent days helping the people in his community get their own Garden Towers. He was the first leader who asked to have Garden Towers throughout Panimatzalam, so our partners in Guatemala helped to make that happen!
Since he has the experience, Pedro is always ready to help find the right soils, mix the soils together, as well as build and plant Garden Towers. He is always happy to help and can’t wait to see how his community is improved with even more gardens!
Aura’s new Garden Tower
Meet Aura Garcia, a recent recipient of a Garden Tower. Her and her husband Manuel have been married for 10 years and work hard to support their 4 primary school-aged children.
To save money, Aura walks 2 miles each way to her job of helping teach women how to read. Her goal is to help her husband support their family, help her children study as much they can, and see her family reach all their dreams through quality education and sustainable nutrition.
She was giving classes to the women in her community when our Guatemala partners’ installing team came to build a few Garden Towers. When she saw these Garden Towers at her work, she imagined the possibility of growing food for her own developing family and asked if she could get one.
The last week of April, the installation team visit her home to build her very own Garden Tower! Aura said she is thankful for such a big blessing.
Every donation makes a difference
Would you like to partner with us to make it possible for more families like the ones you see here to have their own sustainable food source?
In 2022 alone, USANA funded over 32,000 Garden Towers around the world, and we’re looking to surpass that number this year in 2023.
For only US $20, you can provide a family a Garden Tower and everything they will need to successfully produce five to eight nutritious meals per week for years to come.
Community is at our core. Each day, we look for ways to make an impact. Help us empower families today through the hope that grows with Garden Towers.
