By Paloma Jones, ASU sustainable food systems graduate student
Not Just a School
Manzo Elementary may seem like any other school in Tucson, Arizona, but upon walking through the building’s doors, it is clear that it is a special place. Even on a chilly Saturday morning in December with no students around, the school is still bursting with life. This can, in part, be attributed to the school garden located at the literal epicenter of the building. The garden grows a variety of native plants, perennials, and vegetables and includes a chicken coop, a tortoise habitat, and a greenhouse with an aquaponics system. While the garden itself is beautiful and impressive, the story of its origins, community, and legacy is even more so.
At its core, the Manzo Elementary Garden is a grassroots program that began in response to the needs of the school community. Since joining the staff in 2006 as the school counselor, Moses Thompson has been an integral part of this journey. When reflecting on his early years in this role, he admits struggling to connect with the school community, as his interactions with students and parents were “deficit based.” This shifted after he began using the grassy area in the main quad to walk with students and hold group counseling sessions rather than meeting in his office. In his words, these walks were “magical” and sparked a series of “light bulb moments” that inspired him to do more. Despite having no experience in farming and being somewhat naïve about what the endeavor would require, Moses began planting and landscaping in the space.
All the Hands of the Neighborhood
The Manzo Garden has never been a one-person operation. Over time, parents and community members became involved, contributing their skills and expertise and, as Moses describes it, completely “flipping the dynamics” of the school’s climate and culture. The impact of this collective effort is visible throughout the garden, from intricate stonework and drip irrigation to an adobe oven. In time, enrollment increased, parents became more engaged, and students were excited to learn.
The garden program provided opportunities for students to connect with their heritage and maintain cultural ties. This included a mural project incorporating Indigenous farming knowledge and a blessing ceremony led by Elders from the O’odham Nation. Students’ families shared their own knowledge and recipes, which were compiled in the Sonoran Desert School Garden’s Almanac.
Continued Growth
Despite these successes, Manzo faced closure during the 2012–2013 school year due to underperforming test scores and district bureaucracy. By presenting the district with a surge of overwhelming community support, the school remained open, and the garden program continued to thrive. Although Moses’s counselor position was cut from the school’s budget, he was later hired by the University of Arizona (UA) as the Director of the Community School and Garden Program. Through this role, Moses has continued to grow the program at Manzo and expand it to other schools within the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD).
This expansion has included capital projects to build gardens at middle and high schools that serve as feeder schools for Manzo students, ongoing professional development for K–12 teachers, and an internship course at UA that allows students to earn credit while directly supporting school gardens across TUSD.
Today, the program continues to provide Manzo students with meaningful opportunities to learn and lead. Students give garden tours to visitors and operate the weekly Manzo Market Cart, distributing produce harvested from the garden to approximately 300 families. The garden has also incorporated agrivoltaics, which are used for student-led research projects in collaboration with UA students, resulting in Manzo students becoming co-published authors by the sixth grade.
The impact of Manzo is evident in the investment from both within and beyond the community and in the way students are prepared to become future leaders in agriculture. Perhaps the strongest evidence of this impact is that three former Manzo students who participated in the program are now employed as members of Moses’s staff.
This blog is part of a series from the Swette Center's annual Arizona Food and Farm Immersion, a required course in their two graduate programs. Students tour the state, meeting with farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, government staff, and non-profit leaders.