Hope Reigns Community Garden in Basin raises produce and fellowship

The Tanner family moved to Basin in 2023. They dreamed of a community garden. Today, that dream is raising a lot of produce. It is also raising hope for those with food insecurity. 

Tiffany Tanner said they started Hope Reigns Community as a faith-based homestead rooted in fellowship, food and self-sufficiency. 

As a PA at the Basin Clinic of Cody Regional Health, she sees firsthand that lack of fresh foods is contributing to health issues. She encouraged patients to add fresh to their diet. They typically responded, “Have you seen the prices?” 

Currently, the garden is grown on their neighbor’s land. The goal is to purchase land for a garden and building for the bigger concept of Community Homestead. 

The Homestead vision includes a plot with enough land to have a community garden, livestock and a building that would include a kitchen. The kitchen would be used as a learning center to help people become more community sufficient. She mentioned that there would classes to teach people recipes and how to effectively use and preserve the food. The Homestead would support itself financially. There would be opportunities for some to work as a trade off for food. 

Tiffany, along with husband Mike, children James and Mackenzie cultivate the garden as a family. She said, “Preparing the soil and planting the seeds was laborious. Learning that staying on top of the weeds in a garden this size is not optional was stressful.” 

She added that the first fruits were beautiful. Last Monday, she saw the vision come together. 

“There was a community harvesting corn together and laughing and enjoying each other’s company while we worked side by side. In that moment, the vision we had initially had for Hope Reigns Community was remembered and demonstrated,” Tiffany said. “We still aren’t fully operating as we envisioned, but seeing our little family community work together to harvest, then being blessed to be able to share the fruits of our labor with our bigger community of friends and neighbors. That has relit the flame to keep pushing, even when it’s laborious, stressful or downright hard! The beauty and joy that comes from seeing even a fraction of the bigger vision fulfilled is completely worth it all.”

There is a suggested donation of fifty cents to a dollar per item. The donations will go to the purchase of the land. Although Tanner says, “Take what you need, give what you can.” She doesn’t want anyone to not have access to fresh, locally grown organic vegetables. 

The produce is available through their FB page at Hope Reigns Community, at Basin Baptist on Sundays and/or at the Basin Clinic two days a week.