Summer Lettuce Project at JGTF
Harvest Potluck 2025: Celebration of 17 Years
Celebration and a Send Off
On Tuesday, October 14th, New Roots hosted their annual Harvest Potluck. Morning showers gave way to a warm, cloudy evening for the gathering of 120 farmers, staff, volunteers, and dear friends at Juniper Gardens Training Farm.
They gathered to recognize the work of Len Merry, 2025’s sole graduate. An excellent grower of flowers, and natural teacher among her peers, Len will continue to farm at Juniper Gardens in 2026, allowing her to keep building her business while taking more time with her family.
As important, guests at this year’s Harvest Potluck came from across the country to bond over a shared love of the New Roots program and commemorate the end of a 17-year partnership between Cultivate KC and Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas. The two organizations have co-managed the program together since 2008.
Marking a Change of Seasons
Most years, the Harvest Potluck plays an anchoring role in the cycle of a year at Juniper Gardens. Held every October, it’s an opportunity to celebrate the year’s graduating farmers and formally recognize the change of seasons.
For staff it means transition from a season of sweat— field walks, workshops, management of sales channels— to a season of sweaters, production planning, evaluations, and classroom instruction. For New Roots farmers, Harvest Potluck is an opportunity to dress up and honor their fellow growers and be honored. Typically a small party, none of the intimacy was lost by the larger than usual attendance.
Friends Shared Memories and Encouragement
In the spirit of potluck, homecooked dishes lined the tables, including meat from a goat donated by Katherine Kelly, Cultivate KC’s founder and original signer of the land lease at Juniper Gardens. The animal had been divided among four New Roots families to prepare as their contribution to the meal— dishes reflecting the diversity in culinary traditions at the farm.
Kristin Selby, former New Roots Program Director for Catholic Charities, and Ben Carpenter, Juniper Gardens Training Farm Program Manager for Cultivate KC, presented 2025’s sole graduate, Len Merry, with a certificate of completion and gifts to help her along in what comes next for her and her family.
Kristin then formally acknowledged her team and toasted nearly two decades of partnership. She opened the floor to anyone who wanted to share memories of their time with New Roots. The crowd, rich in history, shared appreciation for the past and encouragement for the future.
“Juniper Gardens is in Your DNA”
Stories from former manager Rachel Pollock, CKC founder Katherine Kelly, New Roots graduates and farmers-in-training all shared a theme: Juniper Gardens has always existed in a state of transformation and rarely ever true loss. The cumulative efforts of every man, woman, and child who has spent time there shape the land and forged lasting human relationships.
Juniper Gardens has shaped those people as well. Those in attendance at Harvest Potluck 2025 reflected broad and deep support for a program whose lasting impact goes well beyond the creation of 46 new Kansas City family farm businesses, and an estimated $2 million of locally grown food. The show of support for New Roots on October 14th spoke to how New Roots has become inextricably tangled with hearts and souls of all present.
With that, Cultivate KC would like to thank Priscilla Htay, Elizabeth Graham, Veronica Ma Ket, and Kristin Selby for seeing the partnership through to the end.
A Note of Thanks from Juniper Gardens Training Farm Program Manager, Ben Carpenter
The New Roots program now lives squarely within Cultivate KC. Though we’ve always managed the farm, Juniper’s washstand has been awfully quiet since October 14th without Elizabeth meeting farmers to schedule English classes. The coolers where Veronica and Priscilla loaded the CSA boxes, now clean for the season, are reminders of the friends who have gone. Kristin’s garden gloves are sitting where she left them in the Seed Store.
On behalf of Cultivate KC’s Juniper Gardens Training Farm team, we could not have arrived here, at the end of an unusually successful season, without your compassion, friendship, and commitment to the mission.
In April, when the news broke that we’d be working together for one more season, I asked our teams to make it a good one, to make it count, to swing for the fences. Looking back over the last 6 months, I think we knocked it out of the park. Thanks for making it better than it had to be. Cultivate KC is committed to carrying forward your work as best we can, and I hope to make you all proud. Cheers.
