Jenny Lowrey: Transforming Lives from the Ground Up

From the Ground Up Farms in Chico was born out of intense crisis. In 2009, Jenny Lowrey found herself facing the death of her husband, the disintegration of her health and the subsequent loss of her job. 

After seven heart attacks and two strokes, her doctor gave her six months to live. Jenny realized she needed to rip her life up by the roots and take drastic action to remain present for her two young teenagers. She sold her house, packed her family into a 26-foot trailer and moved to Lake Concow Campground. She began exercising, changing her diet and gardening for the first time. As she cooked meals with ingredients from the garden, she discovered the healing effects of good nutrition. Over the next few years, she shed pounds, medications and diabetes and beat back cancer. 

Nutrition, mental and emotional health rooted in community gardens

With a new lease on life, Jenny moved to Chico. Unfortunately, a house fire forced her to relocate once again. As she looked at a forgotten community garden plot outside the window of her temporary apartment in Chico, the seeds of an idea sprouted in her mind. She acquired the property and rallied friends to revitalize Kentfield Garden – the first of many community gardens designed as a source of food and food education for the local community.

With Jenny Lowry’s “can do” attitude, community gardens are flourishing throughout Chico.

Today, Jenny and her staff of From the Ground Up volunteers are committed to helping people in Butte County access nutritious food through community gardens, food education and life skills training. Their efforts promote not only physical health through good nutrition, but mental and emotional health through good community.

Fire recovery includes job training and rebuilding community

After the 2018 Camp Fire, Jenny applied for grants that funded sawmill equipment to help people in the community clear their land. She partnered with youth from the Concow Maidu tribe, providing what has become a state-recognized job training program for tree-felling. “It has turned the whole tribe around,” Jenny says. “They have been hired in seven counties and have eight years’ worth of contracts. They’re reaching out to other tribes and they’ve been recognized in Sacramento as a leading force in the community for fire recovery.” 

Jenny’s fire recovery efforts also included a tool lending library, which evolved into people trading skills and services toward recovery. Although Jenny again lost her home to fire – this time a wildfire – she focused on rebuilding Lake Concow Campground as a refuge for displaced fire survivors and a hub for community events like the annual Community Egg Hunt. “We know that we’re on the right track because the universe keeps providing everything that we need to help people,” Jenny says. 

Kentfield Kids teaches nutrition and new skills

One of the programs nearest and dearest to Jenny’s heart is the Kentfield Kids program, hosted in the new outdoor kitchen and learning center in the original Kentfield Garden. Tami Donnelson, one of the first members of From the Ground Up and current board president, piloted the program for several years before turning it over to Wendy McCall, whose passion for children and trauma-informed education experience has expanded the scope of the organization. Today, 10 to 15 kids gather weekly in the garden for a hands-on learning experience. 

“It’s been really great to see families come together, with everyone working to learn new skills,” says Wendy. “The kids love getting their hands dirty and learning how they can improve their own diets and help other people. We donate a lot of food to local food banks and the Center for Youth so they can prepare fresh meals for kids. We keep that central to the program – not only receiving good, nutritious food and learning skills to grow food at home, but how we can give back to the community. That ties in so much with the mission and goals Jenny established.”

Adaptability and “I can” attitude transform crisis into opportunity

Wendy describes Jenny as someone with an “I can” attitude. “She looks at something and says, ‘Well, I don’t know if it’s possible, but I can try.’” After less than a year of quilting, for example, Jenny submitted a bargello quilt to the fair. Only when she stood among experienced quilters admiring her first-place-winning creation with comments like, “I’m too scared to try that!” did she learn she had selected an extremely challenging design. “I didn’t know any better,” she says. “If someone had told me, ‘Those are really hard; don’t do that unless you’re really experienced,’ then I wouldn’t have tried it. But I thought, “Hey, that’s pretty, let’s give it a shot.’ I think that’s kind of how we do everything at From the Ground Up. If it takes, it takes. If it doesn’t, we move on to the next great idea.”

Thankfully, Jenny has a knack for finding great ideas and adapting to the situation. “If a project swings a different way, she will follow it that way,” Tami observes. “She knows what’s worthy and what’s not.” Despite knowing Jenny for years, Tami continues to find herself amazed by Jenny’s powerful ability to support the community and transform crises into opportunities to help others. “She’s not even normal,” Tami says laughingly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but it’s wrong in all the right ways.”

Jenny sums it up like this: “The only thing the universe can’t take away from me through trials and tribulations and traumas is my heart. It’s mine to give freely.”

Kentfield Kids is a free opportunity for your kids to get hands-on learning about how our food grows and how it grows them. From toddlers to teens, all ages are welcome to dig their fingers in the soil from 10am-12pm on 

Saturdays. No registration is required. 1125 Kentfield Rd, Chico. Learn more at fromthegroundupfarms.org.