Producer

Thoria Maria is from the Karenni ethnic group in Burma and has been in the US since 2010. She and her husband have 5 children. Her favorite part of farming is eating the fresh vegetables that she grows in her garden, which includes hot chilis, cucumber, and pumpkin leaves. She sells every Saturday at the Bonner Springs’ Farmers Market and every Sunday at St. Ann Catholic Church.

Juniper Gardens Training Farm is a 9-acre site just minutes from downtown Kansas City, KS and right across the river from Kansas City, MO. In partnership with Catholic Charities of NE Kansas, we co-manage the New Roots for Refugees program, helping refugees start and operate independent vegetable farms that supply healthy produce to feed Kansas City. In addition to New Roots, Juniper has 10 community gardeners, 7 program graduates leasing plots, and several staff plots.

The program supports refugee farmers from their first year of selling produce at farmers markets through to their graduation year where they sell through farmers markets, an aggregated CSA program, and an aggregated wholesaling operation that supplies restaurants throughout the metro area.