Less than a mile from the historic buildings that line Pomona’s downtown square, three acres of land are populated by trees, chickens roam free among vegetable sprouts and butterflies hover over blooming flowers.
Since opening in 2020, Lopez Urban Farm has used the space to grow fruits and vegetables, which are given out for free to Pomona residents. In doing so, it has helped address food insecurity in the area, which especially affects low-income residents, undocumented immigrants, seniors and unhoused community members.
What began as a space that grows produce, started by founder Stephen Yorba, has turned into a place that hosts a weekly farmers market, offers bilingual yoga classes that make wellness accessible and provides educational programs that equip college students with farming skills.
“I can describe [Lopez Urban Farm] as what it looks like when the community decides what a space looks like together,” said Pomona native Bianca Ustrell-Friend, 37, director of operations for Community Partners 4 Innovation, the nonprofit directing the project.
The farm is named after Pomona’s Mexican American civil rights activist Ignacio Lopez, who exposed discrimination through his reporting on unequal housing opportunities for Latinos in his Spanish newspaper “El Espectador” (The Spectator). He also led legal efforts that helped end segregation in California and expand rights for Latinos, who make up 72% of Pomona’s population today, per U.S. Census data. His image is memorialized in a shipping container at the farm that is used to store fresh vegetables and fruits.
“He gave a voice to those who were not able to have a voice. He fought to make sure that they had advocacy and that they had a say, and I think that we embody that in how we approach our access to this land,” said Ustrell-Friend.
When Yorba, 63, founded Lopez Urban Farm, he said his goal was to center people over profit.
“When we rescue the production of food from the industrial margins and we bring it back into community, then we’re building community around agriculture. We can farm in a different way. We can collaborate in a different way. We can harvest in a new way.” Yorba said. “I think that’s the beginning of liberation. That’s the beginning of resistance.”
In 2020, Ustrell-Friend was running a free community fridge in Pomona, while working full-time at a jewelry store when Yorba found her on Instagram and offered her free vegetables from the farm.
In one of their conversations about serving the Pomona community, Yorba asked her: ”What would you do if you had a whole building?” Ustrell-Friend responded with her dreams of creating a free marketplace that repurposed extra clothes and produce from community members. “Everyone has clothing they’re not using or has fruit trees with food that is just rotting.”
A couple of days later, Yorba asked her to come down to the farm. “I drive down here and he has a shipping container. He pointed to it and was like, ‘Hey, I bought this for you. You can make your store in here.’”
Ustrell-Friend moved her Pomona Community Fridge onto the farm. More shipping containers were brought in and colorfully painted by local artists. One of them became Ustrell-Friend’s office, while another houses racks of free clothes.
On Sunday mornings, the farm transforms into a yoga studio. Under a group of old oak trees, instructor Juanita Rivas-Raymer has led free and bilingual yoga classes since 2023.
Rivas-Raymer said she created a space where Latino residents can stretch, rest and slow down in an environment that feels welcoming to people who may not feel comfortable walking into a traditional studio.
“You deserve to have a yoga class where you don’t have to feel like you need special clothes or fancy yoga clothes, or you have to look a certain way or be a certain weight or a certain color,” Rivas-Raymer said.
Her experience growing up in an immigrant household, with a Colombian mother and Peruvian father, shapes her mission to make self-care accessible. “I imagine if there would have been a space like Lopez [Urban] Farm, where we could have walked to, then maybe my mom would have done more stuff for herself,” Rivas-Raymer said.
As the farm has evolved with the needs of the community, it has also become a place for students to gain hands-on skills that they can use to serve others.
Fourth-year engineering college student Marcelino Atilano has learned to plant seeds, as well as care for, water and harvest vegetables and fruits, which are then given back to the community. He said that this work is how he is leaving his mark.
“Since I also speak Spanish, I can also help out people who don’t really speak English that very well. And so for me, it’s also a good practice of using my second language as well,” Atilano said.
From Porterville, Atilano has been working at the Lopez Urban Farm for three years. This year, he serves as a peer leader through the “College Corps” program hosted at the farm in partnership with the Center for Community Engagement at Cal Poly Pomona. Atilano said this work makes him feel connected to his family.
“I’m always on the computer, so coming here is really good to get my hands dirty. Connecting to the roots and connecting back to my family, since my parents grew up working in the fields their whole life. And for me, it’s continuing that, but also continuing higher education,” Atilano said.
As the sun sets over the crops at Lopez Urban Farm, volunteers sort through bags of donated clothes, students stock the community fridge with vegetables and families enjoy the flowers in the butterfly garden.
“One of the beautiful things about allowing a community to have a voice in how a space is created means that they get to define why it’s important to them,” Ustrell-Friend said.
In honor of Ignacio Lopez Day in Pomona, the farm will host “El Puestecito” on Wednesday.
Community members can join offerings such as a photography lesson, poetry reading, soap-making workshop and tile-painting class during the farmers market. With music and a huge cake, Ustrell-Friend invites Pomona residents to celebrate Lopez’s birthday in a place that keeps his legacy alive.
The post Civil rights leader Ignacio Lopez advocated for Latinos. In Pomona, Lopez Urban Farm continues his legacy appeared first on Los Angeles Times.
