Arlington Garden is an urban oasis as a walk beneath the oaks will make vivid. Arlington Garden is also a community. We are the volunteers, donors, visitors, gardeners, and artists who share our vision of a healthier urban landscape. The Garden is its inspirational people as well as its plants and animals.

Our upcoming 20th Anniversary will commemorate 20 years of growth and the people who made it possible, including those we have lost along the way, such as our founders Betty and Charles McKenney. In anticipation of this anniversary, we are honoring our community by creating a new gathering space in the garden. We need a place to host community workshops, student field trips, classes, and discussions. We hope that you will join with friends and neighbors to pledge your support for Arlington Garden’s new gathering space in our six-week $20k “We Are An Oak” campaign!

What Our Community Has Accomplished

Our community has created so much since our founding in 2005. We transformed an empty lot destined to be a freeway into a neighborhood garden. Led by our founders Betty and Charles McKenney, working with a dedicated cohort of volunteers and donors, the garden also transformed the neighborhood: the site rapidly grew from “overflow parking” to “hidden gem.”

In the years since breaking ground, Arlington has evolved in response to regional challenges. We now use regenerative techniques to sequester carbon, reduce water use, and mitigate the urban heat island effect. We grow healthy habitats for animals and people. And we educate and inspire the next generation of land stewards through volunteering, workshops, and our recently-inaugurated field trips with Pasadena Unified School District. We have become a neighborhood garden with a regional impact.

Fundraising for our Future

To continue to grow, Arlington Garden needs a dedicated space for gathering, brainstorming, learning, and enjoying. We also need a place for students to connect during field trips, a social spot for volunteers, a meeting space for our community, and a conference table for classes and discussions.

Our community gathering space will be built around a 10+ foot wooden table with a sturdy metal base. The table’s top is made from the trunk of the coast live oak that once stood along Arlington Drive. This oak was massive, beautiful, and had seen over 100 long summers. In a sad sign of the times, it perished due to drought and heavy rains – but the oak and its benefits are not lost. The oak’s heavy branches are now part of our pathway edging. And pieces of its massive trunk will become our new gathering table. Thank you to our in-kind sponsor Angel City Lumber for donating their labor and expertise!

We Are an Oak

Imagine our garden community as an oak. Our individual donors and other supporters, like the City of Pasadena and Vice Mayor Steve Madison, make up its mighty roots. Our volunteers and teachers and partners make up its trunk, branches, and leaves. Just as an oak manifests an entire ecosystem that otherwise exists only in potential, our community turns our mission into reality — we educate, gratify, and inspire because of them. And the fruits of their labor seed new communities and new climate change gardens.