The food is local. The story is global.
As an essential part of the broader resettlement efforts by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Salt Lake City, the New Roots program enables refugees to celebrate their heritage and nourish themselves and their neighbors by planting strong roots—literally—in their new communities.
New Roots is about healthy families, secure communities and a more sustainable future. It’s about dignity, determination and the boundless possibility of human connection. And it’s about the power of people to heal and nurture positive change from the ground up.
In 25 U.S. cities, the IRC provides resettled refugees with the assistance they need to survive and thrive. New Roots is helping them to establish a strong future for themselves, their communities and our world.
About New Roots
New Roots seeks to build a healthier community through the development of small scale, urban farms and community gardens in Salt Lake City. Accessing affordable and nutritious food can be a challenge for families in Salt Lake City. One of the primary goals of New Roots is to provide the communities with access to fresh, local, affordable, and culturally appropriate food.
New Roots is a program of the International Rescue Committee in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The four focuses of New Roots in Utah are...
Community Gardening
Farm Business Training Program
Food Access: Farmers Markets
Youth Agriculture: The YALL Program
Community Gardening
The Community Gardening Program secures plots for refugee families at community gardens throughout Salt Lake City and collaborates with partners such as Wasatch Community Gardens, City of South Salt Lake, the City of Millcreek, Central Valley Water Reclamation Facility, and Salt Lake County to maintain and develop new gardens in high-need areas. New Roots provides seeds, seedlings, and instruction on best gardening practices in Utah to ensure participating gardeners have the best chance to enjoy an abundance of produce throughout the growing season. The vegetables grown in these gardens help provide supplemental food for participants that is nutritious and easily accessible. New Roots brings gardeners together to share their agricultural skills and connect with their new home and community. Currently, the Community Gardening Program is working with over 140 families in 12 garden sites across the Salt Lake Valley.
If you are interested in participating with your own garden please submit a Community Garden Application.
Farm Business Training Program
With three farm sites leased through Salt Lake County—Redwood Farm, a two-acre farm site in West Valley City, Wheadon Farm, a 13-acre farm site in Draper, and the new Glendale Farm, a 1.5-acre farm site in Salt Lake City—New Roots provides refugee farmers with the opportunity to grow and market a variety of crops. New Roots serves over 60 farmers annually, equating to over 40 farm businesses coming from countries including Sudan, Burma, Bhutan, Chad, Somalia, Central African Republic, and Burundi. Through access to land and direct sales of produce to consumers, the farmers are able to gain skills and achieve greater economic independence by earning supplemental income for their families.
New Roots provides all training and technical assistance farmers need to be successful at whatever scope and size of farm business they desire. For some farmers, this means growing produce just for their family & community, while others prefer to sell at the New Roots Farmers Markets that operate on Wednesdays and Saturdays from June to October. Those markets serve as an easy entry into selling produce in the United States as farmers are not required to have their own digital payment systems to sell, instead New Roots staff run a benefits booth at each market, exchanging cash, credit cards, SNAP, and produce incentives into token or voucher form to eliminate the digital element for farmers. The Wednesday Farmers Market at Redwood Farm also offers a free choice CSA, where each CSA member receives tokens for their pre-paid share and shops at the market to choose their vegetables for that week.
If a farmer is interested in expanding beyond sales at the New Roots Farmers Markets, the program can support them in connecting with new markets such as starting their own CSA, selling to a wholesale buyer, or selling at another local farmers market. Farmers who wish to sell to these new avenues are given training and technical assistance to learn needed skills such as communicating with buyers, invoicing, and digital payment systems.
Food Access: Farmers Markets
New Roots operates two farmers markets in Salt Lake County, which are an affordable fresh food resource for residents in areas with low food access. The multi-vendor markets specialize in specialty crops, common in countries around the world, but difficult to find in the U.S. It also provides New Roots farmers a venue to sell and market their produce. All New Roots markets are open to the public and a resource for all community members to access.
The New Roots Farmers Markets are held from mid-June to mid-October on Wednesdays from 4-7 and Saturdays from 10-2 at the Redwood Farm site - 3005 S Lester St, West Valley City, UT 84119
Both New Roots Farmers Markets offers a 1-to-1 incentive vegetable match to customers eligible to receive EBT/SNAP. The amount of the match changes from year to year, but an example of how this program works is when a customer spends $20 at the market they receive an additional $20 for free, in the form of tokens that can be spent at the market, for a total of $40 in purchasing power at the New Roots Farmers Markets. Additionally, New Roots Farmers Markets offer Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP) vouchers. Eligible seniors either get a letter in the mail and redeem it at one of the listed farmers markets, including New Roots locations, or can sign up at the market even without a letter. To learn more about the program and it’s eligibility, please visit the Department of Health’s SFMNP page.
Utah Double Up Food Bucks & SFMNP are programs administered by the Utah Department of Health.
Youth Agriculture: The YALL Program
The New Roots Youth Agriculture Program, also known as YALL, which stands for Youth, Agriculture, Learning, and Leadership, is a New Roots internship program for refugee and new American high-school aged youth to gain experiences and skills related to agriculture, leadership, community service, food systems, and more!
The YALL program operates as a cohort of students from April through October with students meeting on Saturdays in the Spring, 3-4 times per week in the Summer, and after school in the fall. To see the current year’s schedule please visit this page.
YALL participants also earn a stipend for their time participating in the program that generally ranges from $300-$500 per cohort.
Interested in applying? Visit the application link. Note: Applications for the new year are due April, 1st!