Better together: Urban Growth Tour highlights the importance of community for local farms
2025 Urban Growth Tour. // Photo provided by Jessica Garcia.
If you’ve ever wanted to experience the beautiful gardens, farms, and green areas locals have created around the metro, this year’s Urban Growth Tour will connect you with a community of growers and their glorious spaces for all to enjoy.
Hosted by Cultivate KC this September, the tour will feature fifteen farm and garden sites where attendees will meet local farmers, hear their stories of resilience, and learn how to sustainably grow food themselves.
The tour itself is self-guided for a more personalized experience and stops at farms like non-profit organization Global One Urban Farming, 1.5 acres of farm with unique beginnings right in the middle of the city dedicated to providing fresh food and farming education for all.
Cofounder Staroyce Nealy began growing decades ago because of her love for fresh tomatoes, and that interest in produce soon connected her to other local farmers.
“My husband and I went out to Fred and Helen’s farm in St. Joe, and they taught us everything we needed to know about germination,” Nealy says. “They showed us how to germinate seeds on a large scale, and how the greenhouse works. They ended up being our mentors.”
Armed with her newfound knowledge, Nealy decided she wanted to share what she knew with younger members of the community, starting by teaching the greenhouse process at African-Centered College Preparatory Academy. Nealy and her husband now had more tomatoes than they knew what to do with—and so local bishop Saundra McFadden-Weaver then gifted them a section of land to store their plants.
“We took our tomatoes and other plants we were germinating there, then we would donate food to the pantry,” Nealy says. “And our accountant was like, “What are you doing? You’re wasting money. You need to start a nonprofit.””
2025 Urban Growth Tour. // Photo provided by Jessica Garcia.
Finally, in 2016, Global One Urban Farming was officially a nonprofit organization after years of spreading farm education and fresh produce. Nealy had also been connected to Ami Freeburg from Cultivate KC for years in her mission to share the love through food, which is what ultimately got her organization a stop on this year’s Urban Growth Tour.
“They reached out to me and asked if I wanted to be involved, and I was like, “Oh yes, yes I do,”” Nealy says. “Because people don’t know I’m here, and I’ve been here 10 years.”
This exposure the tour provides is essential for organizations like Nealy’s—who says every person who gets involved gets or gives something positive from their mission.
“We need resources, and the more people that can join in on this farm tour the more that see that we’re here,” Nealy says. “They can also get the opportunity to receive free food because we do have a distributor we go and see every week, they can come and learn from what we have here.”
Outside of a 6-year hiatus, The Urban Growth Tour has been connecting people to local farmers since 2005 and takes a big team to run, including Cultivate KC’s Jessica Garcia, Eric Hemphill, and Ami Freeberg.
Freeberg is the Director of Strategy and Partnerships and has been with Cultivate KC since 2010, watching the Urban Growth Tour incorporate more and more local farmers. Giving these spaces more visibility is even more pertinent than ever right now—as she says people are more concerned with where their food is coming from.
“There’s something special about seeing the food on the plant and then eating it the same day,” Freeberg says. “We’re in this moment right now with illness outbreaks, moments where like with COVID there were supply chain breaks, right now we’ve been seeing explosive diarrhea, it’s enough to make people pause and think about where their food is coming from.”
2025 Urban Growth Tour. // Photo provided by Jessica Garcia.
Despite dozens of local farms existing around the metro, Freeberg says most residents aren’t aware they exist and may need their help to continue serving the community. Bonding with these farms allows both the farmers and the volunteers to benefit through shared food, help, and community connection.
“If you are a person that lives in a neighborhood that has an urban farm, and you meet that farmer and get to attend a volunteer day later on, that only strengthens your connection to your community,” Freeberg says. “It also helps the farmer out immensely by providing more hands, another person in their network that can promote them and amplify them.”
The promotion and support aspect of making these community connections is what makes this tour so important. According to Garcia, without the awareness of these local farms around them, the farmers will struggle to stay afloat.
“When people are unaware of something that is happening in their community, they don’t have the opportunity to fight for it, and don’t have the opportunity to contribute to it either,” Garcia says.
This was what the Urban Growth Tour was founded on—forming a strong connection between the local people and farmers to build a relationship where both can support and benefit each other. Outside of the connections and sharing support, the Urban Growth Tour also is just a great opportunity to spend time outside in the beautiful gardens around KC.
“It’s just lovely to be outside in these cultivated spaces that people take a lot of care and time into making these kinds of vibrant spaces,” Hemphill says. “It’s a great way to spend a Sunday.”
Cultivate KC is a nonprofit organization supporting the local food system in the KC area by empowering farmers and promoting sustainable practices. The Urban Growth Tour is on September 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and you can register for $10 online.
