Hey friends! My name is Isabella (most of you know me as Bae) and I’m currently a student at NMSU-A. About 4 weeks ago, another student and myself were given an assignment that required solving a real world problem building a website or application. For those of you who are familiar with the With Many Hands community gardens in Otero county, you may also know Courtney (the amazing woman who runs these gardens) made a post about harvesting green onions. I happen to see this post just a few hours before class that day! It was truly meant to be!

This inspired me to reach out to her and ask if this project could be associated with the With Many Hands Public Land for Food Campaign-Alamogordo. So, over the past month we have poured our time, heart, and skills into creating Project RootEd: a website built to support and empower our community with the knowledge they need to confidently and correctly harvest from community gardens. The website (although temporarily small) includes real photos and video tutorials of plants at one of the gardens!

In under a month, we built an entire website designed specifically for the With Many Hands Community Garden — a place that has been feeding families and strengthening our community one seed at a time.

On December 5, Elijah and I will be presenting the RootEd website at NMSU-A! When we stand up there, we don’t want to simply show a project, we want to give something back to the garden that inspired it!!

Our goal is to raise at least $250 to donate materials to the With Many Hands Community Garden.

Every dollar raised will help purchase:

• Plants, seeds, and soil

• Gardening tools and supplies

• Irrigation and maintenance items

• and hopefully more!

This garden provides fresh food, healing, and connection to families across Otero County. It represents hope and it deserves continued support as it grows.

Whether you can give $5 or $50, every contribution will go directly to the garden to help it expand and keep it alive.

Thank you for helping plant the seeds of a stronger, healthier, and more connected community.

The website may not look like much right now, but it’s only because we had a very limited time and a lot of deadlines to meet for class. I have explained to Courtney that after the semester is over, I will finish adding the plants from all the other gardens and their harvest tutorials. If you would like to check this website out, go to:

www.rooteducated.com

thank you for your support! I am excited to see what we can raise for With Many hands in Otero County New Mexico!

Much love,

Isabella Telles: Project Designer and Developer

Elijah Weatherwax: Project Tester and Documentation Specialist