Now Hiring: Garden and Building Steward 

Full-time, in-person in New Orleans, LA

Freedom to Grow is an initiative at the intersection of art, land-based healing, community power, and archival practices. In collaboration with currently-incarcerated people, we create gardens, herbal medicines, and archival projects that tell the stories of incarceration and resistance, and envision a landscape without prisons.

Freedom to Grow is hiring a Garden and Building Steward to help us grow our vision into a thriving place to collaborate, create and dream. The Garden and Building Steward will care for and coordinate multiple gardens, oversee maintenance and renovation projects, and help tend the relationships that make this work possible, from currently incarcerated Solitary Gardeners to volunteers, neighbors, plants and other collaborators. This is a hands-on, relational role for someone who believes gardens can be sites of resistance, remembrance, and possibility.

Eventually this position will help design and launch the next phase of our Liberation Landscaping project and Legacy Gardens, building garden beds that speak to the mission of Freedom to Grow across the city.  

Key responsibilities include:

• Maintain the Solitary Gardens, The Abolitionist’s Sanctuary, garden beds at The John Thompson Legacy Center, and Liberation Landscaping sites across the city.

• Daily maintenance of gardens includes, but is not limited to: organic pest control, planting, watering, weeding, pruning, composting, cold prep, seeing, maintaining the greenhouse, harvesting, and everything necessary to maintaining robust gardens

• Collaborate with the herbalist in the Abolitionist’s Apothecary to grow plants for specific formulas and wellness care. 

• Perform basic repairs and renovations on buildings and gardens. 

• Coordinate and help implement creative and green infrastructure projects/renovations across our various sites 

• Support the production of new garden beds in collaboration with currently-incarcerated people, who design the beds through regular correspondence.

• Develop and facilitate volunteer garden workdays for volunteers and student groups

• Document garden activities and support the growth of Freedom to Grow’s living plant archive

• Support development of the Liberation Landscaping and Legacy Gardens projects.

• Collaborate with community partners, farmers, and planters across New Orleans

• Participate in visioning the future of Freedom to Grow at staff gatherings and meetings.

• Weekly check-ins with FTG Executive Director and Creative Director.

Growth and Mentorship Possibilities:

• Learn with the Freedom to Grow team about abolitionist frameworks grounded in environmental justice, food justice, and place-based history

• Receive hands-on training in gardening and land care with local New Orleans farmers and planters

• Paid continuing education for permaculture, green infrastructure, mycology or other interests that support Freedom To Grow’s mission

Qualifications

The following qualifications are essential to success in this position

• Ability to work in person in New Orleans

• Experience with gardening, landscaping, farming, or land stewardship 

• Basic carpentry, plumbing, and repair skills 

• Ability to lift 50 pounds and perform regular physical labor

• Commitment to racial equity and social justice

• Desire to learn more about plant histories, plant medicine, and healing properties of the plant world

• Willingness to work on Saturday mornings and occasional evenings

• Driver’s License, with reliable transportation between garden sites

• Enthusiasm for engaging with volunteers from diverse backgrounds, and sharing the joy of the natural world

• Excitement about abolitionist practice rooted in care, imagination, and social change

• Ability to work independently, manage your own schedule, and balance physical work with relational and administrative tasks

• Willingness to keep learning and growing collaboratively with a small team

 Additionally, these qualifications are not essential but preferable:

• Direct experience with the criminal justice system.

• Self-motivated plant-lover, with a commitment to the mission of Freedom to Grow

• Knowledge of, or curiosity about, New Orleans histories of resistance, mutual aid, and social movements

• Value creativity and the imagination

• Experience with, or interest in learning more about green infrastructure (solar, water catchment, composting) 

Compensation & Benefits

• Salary: $60,000- $65,000 annually commensurate with experience

• Paid Time Off: Two weeks of paid vacation, plus additional paid holidays and sick days

• Health Care: Comprehensive health insurance with premiums fully covered by Freedom to Grow

• Professional Development: Training and professional development are key to this role, with ample opportunities for ongoing education

We believe in supporting the well-being of our team as part of our broader commitment to care, sustainability, and justice.

Freedom to Grow is an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to building an organization that reflects the values we fight for - liberation, collective care, and ecological justice. We actively seek to center and uplift individuals who are directly impacted by the criminal legal system, as well as those from communities historically excluded from access to land, healing, and power. We welcome applicants of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, abilities, and backgrounds. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, age, disability status, criminal legal involvement, or any other characteristic protected by law.

To apply, please email info@freedomtogrow.org with a resume or CV, and responses to these two questions, either in written form, voice memo, or short video (whatever you feel most comfortable with): 

• How do your lived/professional experiences make you a strong fit for this position? 

• Here are some of Freedom to Grow’s values; please pick one, and tell us what it means to you: 

• Plants are medicine which help us end cycles of harm.

• Relationships with plants can offer a sense of connection that grounds people in their communities and supports them in staying out of the criminal legal system.

• Community education about the intersections of environmental justice, food justice, and carceral systems deepens our collective capacity for transformative action.

• Plants teach us to be better people and the natural world can provide the roadmap to liberation.

• Finally, plants bring wonder, awe, and curiosity into our vision as an antidote to the rigidity of carceral systems.