PHOENIX— When Nika Forté was living in a public housing development on the east side of Phoenix, she remembers having to make the arduous walk to the grocery store.

She would gather her children together and make the long trek across the city to find fresh food during the swelter of summer.

“When I was a single mom," she recollect, "I would have to walk with my kids a mile and a half to go get groceries in July.”

Originally from Detroit, Forté started Heart & Soil People’s Garden in South Phoenix after her experience trying to find food for her family in what is known as a food desert among policy experts. The USDA defines them as poor areas of the country where residents of limited access to nutritious, fresh food.

The garden recently unveiled a new Garden Education Center on Tuesday, allowing for Forté’s work to expand. 

Out of the 55 food deserts in Arizona, 42 fall within Maricopa County. City of Phoenix Vice Mayor Kesha Hodge Washington said more than 25 of those food deserts are in District Eight, her district. The vice mayor was in attendance for the ribbon cutting. She said the garden directly affects her constituents.

“It is (an) opportunity for us to address a problem, absolutely, and move it forward, and it's through partnerships like this that we are addressing (food deserts),” the vice mayor said.

Access to healthy food has a direct correlation to overall indicators of health, including life expectancy. Dr. Daniel Wiese, senior scientist at the American Cancer Society co-authored a study about life expectancy and its relation to food and nutrition. 

“These results provide further evidence that a healthy diet is important for living a healthier and longer life,” he said. “Limited healthy food accessibility is a potential contributor to poor diet and has been associated with adverse health outcomes, including obesity and diabetes.”

According to the Journal of Urban Health, “Limited healthy food accessibility is a potential contributor to poor diet and has been associated with some adverse health outcomes.”

Forté didn’t start her life with dreams of gardens and beekeeping. But, when she found her green thumb, it stuck. She realized her passion for gardening when she started small — growing plants in buckets in her backyard. 

“The garden, I actually was really good at,” she said. 

Heart & Soil expanded onto neighboring property, creating the Garden Education Center. The center was made possible by philanthropic partnership with the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation. 

Local First Arizona hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony on Tuesday to celebrate the partnerships. 

Forté, founder and director of Heart & Soil People’s Garden, went to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts to pursue an associate’s degree in Mind Body Transformational Psychology. As part of her studies there, she found her passion for gardening and nutrition through an additional certificate program. 

She originally went to the Institute to become a life coach, but said her empathetic nature prevented her from being successful in that field. She found it “hard to shed people’s stuff.”

Forté’s work at Heart & Soil has grown to incorporate neighboring property, which Kimber Lanning said is vital to local health in the South Phoenix community. Lanning is the founder and CEO of Local First Arizona. 

“I think when you have children and they’re learning where their food comes from, it’s just a special aha moment where you just can’t replicate that,” Lanning said. 

Renee Parsons, who attended the event, said she has a personal connection to the garden, having donated over $1 million to support the garden’s expansion.

Community members tour the established side of Heart and Soil People’s Garden and on March 31, 2026, in Phoenix, Ariz.

Cronkite News/Allison Kotzbauer

“When I was first introduced to the garden was in April of 2023, so about three years ago, and I was inspired by the women that I met here, by the work they were doing,” Parsons said. 

Washingtonwas also in attendance for the ribbon cutting. The vice mayor said the garden directly impacts her constituents. 

“It is [an] opportunity for us to address a problem, absolutely, and move it forward, and it's through partnerships like this that we are addressing [food deserts],” the vice mayor said. 

Forté’s smile never faded as she led guests around her garden. 

“I want to go to low income apartment complexes and help them start gardens," Forté said.  "Because when I was a single mom, and I lived there, it was always like, food or pay for transportation or a gas bill”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.