Zac Couture is celebrating 10 years with Lutheran Services in Iowa’s Immigrant and Refugee Community Services! He started volunteering with LSI to teach English to immigrants and refugees before helping start and grow what is now known as LSI Global Greens.
Inspired by his experience in college when he spent time in El Salvador with the House of Solidarity program, which focused on grassroots, community-based work that was led by members of the community, he was drawn to LSI’s work with immigrants and refugees.
With a passion for social justice, Zac was originally hired to help research and launch a gardening program for former refugees who couldn’t find food they grew up eating in the grocery store. Many also had farming backgrounds and wanted to return to working with the land.
“It’s really important for people who came from agriculture backgrounds who felt disconnected from the land and family traditions to be able to grow their own produce as a step toward healing and reclaiming what they lost,” said Zac, now the land and production supervisor for LSI Global Greens. “The gardens started as a way to help former refugees reconnect to the land and themselves.”
Along with LSI leaders, community members, and former refugees, Zac traveled to other communities around the country to see how various garden programs were structured. He helped start the first urban gardens of the LSI Global Greens program, which connects immigrants and refugees to small garden plots near their homes in the Des Moines metro.
The LSI Global Greens program grew after clients expressed an interest in starting small farm businesses, and it expanded to the LSI Global Greens incubator farm in West Des Moines thanks to a partnership with Valley Church.
LSI Global Greens has grown tremendously since those early days and is now a national leader in the “food equity” space — such as creating farm education and training for other communities and farmers to learn from
In addition, LSI Global Greens has expanded the marketplace for locally grown vegetables, including varieties of African or Asian produce not typically found at the grocery store.
That includes the LSI Global Greens farmers market each Saturday morning in Des Moines through October, and a weekly CSA produce box that provides steady income to farmers throughout the season.
Zac continues to work to improve land access and the local food system for immigrants and refugees in Central Iowa.
