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Planting Seeds of Health in a Community Garden in Katy

Katy Garden

There’s a community garden in Katy, Texas, that supports families who need help.

For people having a hard time making ends meet and facing food insecurity, the garden offers sustenance. For those stuck in a cycle of poverty, it offers gardening lessons. For victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, it’s a therapeutic outlet.

The garden is owned and run by Katy Christian Ministries (KCM), a social service nonprofit organization providing a wide range of services to families and communities in Katy and West Houston. Amerigroup Texas partnered with KCM to install an irrigation system in the garden, which was officially commemorated last month.

The project and partnership advance Amerigroup’s work to improve health by fortifying communities and focusing on the whole person — not just our members’ immediate issues and symptoms, but also the factors that drive their physical and mental health and wellbeing. It also demonstrates the work of Amerigroup, along with other Elevance Health-affiliated health plans across the nation, to prioritize mental health as part of our whole-health approach to care.

Without the irrigation system, the 100-square-foot garden can only be watered by hand.

Volunteers must pull water out of a nearby well to irrigate gardens and fruit trees. The irrigation system of soaker hoses and other equipment will mitigate that work.

All told, the garden will assist 6,000 households and provide 5,000 pounds of organic produce each year. It also will support 48 educational sessions with children and young people, and it will provide therapeutic opportunities for more than 1,000 victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse. These benefits will be available to everyone KCM serves, not just Amerigroup members.

And it promises to grow — while the garden currently takes up about a sixth of an acre, KCM plans to expand it to a full acre over the next several years.

“At Amerigroup, we often say that food is medicine. This community garden shows how these projects help people get healthy and stay healthy. These projects improve health ways that stretch far beyond the walls of a clinic. We’re grateful for partners such as KCM that share our commitment to community and to addressing the social issues that drives people’s health.”

Greg Thompson, President, Amerigroup Texas

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