February 11, 2024
By Diego J. Magaña, President, MiniNature
Pan y Plantas, photo by Kayla Ann Gerardo
Our mission is to restore and preserve nature in urban environments through landscape projects that engage, educate, and empower the local community.
We do this by helping low-income communities create what we call "MiniNature Reserves" and "Community Nurseries." A MiniNature Reserve is a native garden in a public park, school, parkway, neighborhood, or small business storefront.
A Community Nursery grows the native plants for these gardens and sells them at pop-up plant sales or special events to help fund our work. Community Nurseries also double as a green space and free education centers.
We also host "Tending" events during which we gather food, materials, seeds and perform basic maintenance on our MNRs. We host cooking classes led by Indigenous Educators, so people learn how to incorporate native plants into their cooking. There’s also no shortage of special events such as our annual Celebration of Community - a collaboration with Oxnard Young Ecologists where people make wreaths with native plants and donate toys, food, and clothes to families of Farmworkers.
So far, the group has created seven reserves, planted over 500 native plants and flowers while recovering over 8700 square feet for the preserves.
We also have a robust School Garden and Educational Visits Program. We currently prioritize in-person visits at low-income and migrant schools in the Ventura County area. However, if your school does not fit these criteria, please still feel free to reach out to us.
We offer schools the opportunity to choose from our themed lesson plans. Please browse our lesson plans, terms, conditions, and partnership agreements. In addition, we also assist schools with the installation of native plant gardens. Fill out the form at the website below to learn more, volunteer or donate. https://mininature.org
Shtakuk MiniNature Reserve, photo by Diego Magaña