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ORAL HISTORY

Teresa O'Donnell

A veteran of the tech industry, Teresa O’Donnell had never given much thought to farming or food systems. Then in 2010, she accepted an invitation from Catholic Charities to greet a family of arriving Somalian refugees at the airport. “My heart was touched,” she says of this life changing experience. At the same time she struggled to see how a professional like herself could help people with such needs who were coming to Houston from foreign, agrarian backgrounds. Soon after, though, she discovered the concept of market gardening through Urban Harvest’s founder Bob Randall. “He explained to me that he thought a person in Houston could generate a living wage for a family on small acreage.”

This idea led her to form Plant it Forward, a nonprofit that empowers refugees to build sustainable urban farming businesses by pairing participants with land, training and mentorship. The organization has helped hundreds since its founding. “The lovely thing about our farmers is the kids I knew, when they had just first arrived, are now in college or the Air Force,” she says. “They have blended into American life and are marrying and having families- which is similar to all our stories, right? We’re just a few generations removed from that.”