Partnerships

GROW at Kazimour Farm is a 100-year-old apple orchard owned by the Kazimour Family. The Family is reopening the Orchard as a Local Non-Profit Community Hub, with the goal of providing job opportunities and training to empower individuals of all abilities, ages, and backgrounds.

This will provide meaningful employment at the Orchard by …

- Developing Skills
- Fostering Social Connections
- Combating Social Isolation
- Engaging Volunteers

To accomplish our mission, we collaborate with a diverse range of community partners.

Core Crew Community Collaborators

Metro Area School Systems: STEAM Academy/Transition Alliance Program enables students to learn new skills to gain future employment in the community

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Students from Metro High School grew pumpkin seedlings in their on-site greenhouse and transplanted to GROW fields.

Arc of East Central Iowa: Empowers individuals with disabilities and their families to engage in lifelong opportunities to live, learn, work, play, and advocate with full dignity and inclusion in their communities.

To the Rescue: A comprehensive Life Services Company with a clear vision of improving the quality of people’s lives.

Four Oaks – TotalChild® Workforce: Supporting teens and young people by providing community mentors, job shadows, and internships to enable stability and self-sufficiency by age 26

Community Volunteers

Garden Club of Cedar Rapids The club’s “Dirty Fingers” crew was instrumental in planting containers for GROW’s Buds and Blossom’s event, while another club member gave an entertaining and informative seminar on container gardening during the event itself.

Corporate Groups: Frontier-Coop employees spent Earth Day 2024 planting 22 apple trees, clearing brush and prepping a quarter acre plot for pumpkins and gourds

Addressing Community Food Insecurity

GROW at Kazimour Farm & Orchard donates 10% of our annual produce harvest to local organizations combating food insecurity and hunger.

Feed Iowa First: Responds to increasing food insecurity in Linn County by growing culturally relevant vegetables for underserved communities for more than a decade. During Fall 2023, GROW sold/donated hundreds of pounds of apples to Feed Iowa First providing fresh produce for their clientele/food banks

Metro Catholic Outreach: Our new partner for fall 2024, supports 140 families weekly. GROW will provide fresh produce through sales and donations to help address community food insecurity.