8-29-2024 4:27pm

With Many Hands Upcoming Food and Housing Summit and More

Chris Edwards Editor

With Many Hands Alamogordo is an organization with a mission that is making a visible contribution to the Alamogordo Community in outreach, collaboration and developing a voice for the underserved communities that face food and housing insecurity.

Under the leadership of Courtney McCary-Squyres and her husband James, and with her children, they are often engaged in the gardens from Alamogordo to Tularosa. The organization is expanding its presence with a major social media presence at With Many Hands Alamogordo on Facebook and beyond.

The family is partnered in the daily work with the organization and leading volunteers that are serving as a major source of collaboration. The organization and its mission is bringing diverse volunteers together and transforming inner city spaces into community gardens, enlightening dialogue on community planning, policy development initiatives toward affordable housing and more.

The organization is featured in the Otero County Food Resource Guide, created by the Otero County Extension Office along with multiple other programs and resources with its community gardens. The Maryland Avenue Gardens which it oversees, as a part of the Dudley School Community Center Revitalization Initiative is a catalyst to neighborhood collaboration and improvement to fresh food security.

Food Community Resources Guide Link

The organization was awarded a recent grant from the Farm to Table’s (FTT) New Mexico Farmer Innovation Program (NMFIP) as one of 15 projects in nine counties throughout New Mexico that will receive funds in the 2024 grant cycle of the Urban Agriculture Initiative’s Micro-Grants. With Many Hands Alamogordo was approved and awarded $7,000 for building a greenhouse and getting lots of soil amendments. Courtney says, "I’m working on a grant to create an urban farmer training program in Otero County to teach others how to grow at ”human scale” and how to apply for funding opportunities."

While not grant writing, speaking to community groups, and working in the gardens, Courtney and her team has been hyper focused on an upcoming food and housing summit that the organization is hosting on September 7th, 2024 at the Tays Center from 11 am to 1 pm.

The Southeast New Mexico Food and Housing Summit brings together working people across the region who care about the cost and quality of food and housing alongside organizations, elected officials, and candidates for office.

The Summit features:

Workshops and Booths from Local Food and Housing Organizations
FREE Lunch from Local Businesses
Keynote speaker
Congressional and State Legislative Candidates Forum
Opportunity to meet people taking action to enable all of us to have healthy, affordable local food and safe, affordable housing

The Summit serves as a location where participants advance a pro-worker, pro-local food, pro-affordable housing agenda through attending workshops, learning about organizations doing the daily work to make Southeast New Mexico more livable, and connecting with each other.