January 1, 2018

As we move into the New Year, we want to share an exciting update about our brand identity. The Big Garden was founded in 2005 as a program of United Methodist Ministries through a USDA Community Food Project grant. We have operated as a program under UMM’s nonprofit umbrella for over a decade. We appreciate our heritage, and we are indebted to the United Methodist Church for planting the seeds that would become The Big Garden. After nearly fifteen years of this work, it has become clear that United Methodist Ministries is now committed to one singular mission: increasing food security through community gardening. Therefore, we have made the decision to sunset our brand identity as United Methodist Ministries, and fully embrace our lived identity as The Big Garden. This will allow us to reach a broader audience that includes people of all ages and diverse religious and cultural backgrounds.

Throughout the coming year, you will see our brand identity subtly shift as we fully embrace our new lived identity. You might notice changes to our logo, websites, and printed materials. We are pursuing legal changes to our official nonprofit name as well; we will be legally known as The Big Garden. Our programs and wonderful staff, however, will not change because of our new branding.

We want to assure you that we remain committed to the values that we inherited from our United Methodist founders: fighting social injustices and increasing food security in our communities. We are still the same great organization, building community gardens and teaching people how to grow their own food. We may have a fresh, new look, but our work will remain the same: ensuring that all of our community members have the skills and access to grow fresh, healthy food.