Thoroughly Dirty Punks
Thoroughly Dirty Punks is a food growing and gardening collective that focuses on growing and distributing FREE, locally grown produce and herbs from MICRO food growers and gardeners within Sacramento.
Our mission is simple - we want marginalized people to be able to have access to fresh produce and herbs, consistently, without any barriers.
As a collective, we are deeply passionate about mutual aid and feeding people.
We are dedicated and continuously work to educate and help marginalized people with growing their own food and food for their community, as a way to fight against food insecurity and to help create more sustainable mutual aid networks within Sacramento.
We hope to encourage more people, especially those who already consider themselves punks, anarchists, communists, socialists, anti-capitalists, etc. - to get more directly involved in supporting and sustaining mutual aid and community organizing efforts for marginalized folx, within the Sacramento community.
The most immediate and urgent goals we are working to achieve by March 2027:
◘ Recruit at least 50-100 micro food grower volunteers within the Sacramento area by the time we get ready to have our first "Growing A Giveaway" in the second week of March.
◘ Recruit at least 30 volunteers who can pick up and drop off the produce and herbs from various gardens, when necessary.
◘ Working to partner with UC Master Gardeners & expert gardeners who are interested in being a knowledgeable resource for the collective.
◘ Find and collaborate with artists who are interested in helping to generate small forms of income for the collective through collaborative sales (i.e. stickers, keychains, bookmarks, ACEO's, t-shirts, etc)
◘ We are working to secure an outdoor space that is decently sized to start hosting beginner gardening classes in Spring and Fall of 2027.
◘ We are looking to partner with various local community organizations that are interested in growing food with our collective.
These are the long term goals we hope to reach by 2029-2030:
◘ We are working to eventually reach at least 400 seasonal food growers for the collective, with 100-150 of those being new to food growing.
◘ We hope to have at least 20 community organizers who are dedicated to maintaining and supporting the collective, beyond the founder itself.
◘ We hope to have at least 60 to 80 volunteers who support and assist the collective with picking up and dropping off harvests, but also help with events and other tasks, when possible.
◘ We hope to eventually expand to year round, growing and giving by 2030.
◘ We hope to eventually build and partner with other community organizers in other parts of California to get a Thoroughly Dirty Punk Collective started near you!
As a food grower for the collective, you agree to plant and donate harvests from at least 2 (two) edible plants in your garden meaning, for example, if you are currently growing 6 tomato plants - you agree to grow two more AND donate all the food produced from those plants, to the collective to be freely distributed to the community.
-
We would obviously love for you to donate more than 2 plants, but we only require that you agree to grow and donate a mininum of 2 plants to be considered one of our food growers.
-
We would love if our experienced and established food growers would consider growing at least 4-6 plants for the collective, but we will NEVER pressure you to do so!
-
We do require that you must be a pesticide free food grower and lean towards a more organic gardening approach for your food growing methods when growing and giving with us each season.
-
However, although we ask this of you when growing and giving with us - we will NOT try to micromanage how you grow your food or garden, especially if it works!
Upcoming Important Dates for 2026-2027
(This is NOT set in stone so it can easily be discussed and adjusted as needed! Treat these dates for now as target goals, but they will likely be adjusted as things progress and we grow as a collective.)
October 2026
-
We will start accepting applications for Food Growers on October 11th.
-
We will start accepting Artist Collaboration applications on October 11th.
-
There will be a twitch information livestream about the collective that will be posted by October 11th.
January 2027
-
We stop accepting applications for Food Growers on February 28th.
-
We hope our established gardeners have already started seeds by now to have something to harvest for a drop off or pick up for the second weekend of March, if you’re growing with us through the season.
March 2027
-
We will stop accepting Artist Collaboration applications on March 31st.
-
We will have our first "Growing A Giveaway" where we welcome in the season that'll take place on the second week of March.**
-
We want to offer beginner gardening classes by early Spring, once we've secured a space.
October 2027
-
We plan to have our end of season "Growing A Giveaway" no later than the weekend of the 23rd.**
----------
**The two highlighted community events are ones that we encourage ALL of those who are collaborating, working, volunteering and growing with our collective to attend to properly kick off and eventually wrap up our growing and giving season.
One will take place the second week of March 2027 and the second will take place the weekend of the 23rd in October 2027.
-
Both events will be used as a space to allow those who might be interested in growing with our collective -- to meet our food growers, volunteers and community organizers!
-
We plan to have our first and last "Growing A Giveaway" of the season, small snacks and water, small goodie bags & possibly more!
-
We plan to offer a seed and plant share/swap at both events.
-
We plan to have artists
-
This event is a work in progress and we definitely hope to make it bigger than it currently is now!
"Growing A Giveaway" is the name of our food giveaway events during our growing and giving season which will run from early March to late October in 2027!
We will make sure to connect with all our food growers before each growing season to get an idea of what all will be grown throughout the season and making sure we are all getting our seeds planted on time to be ready for our first giveaway in March!
-
For our experienced and established food growers, we hope you’ll have your seeds started in enough time to have a harvest that’s ready for drop off or pick up, by the second weekend of March, if you’re planning to grow with us all season. We will start sending out soft check in’s & reminders in January and early February.
-
However, if you plan to grow sporadically throughout the season, just let us know when you have a harvest and we can schedule a time to have you drop off your harvest or have someone pick it up from you, if necessary.
-
For those new to food growing and interested in growing with our collective -- we will be hosting a twitch live, within the first few weeks of January to help you narrow down what you might want to grow and offer you tons of knowledge and resources about growing food.
I've been using the term "Community Guidelines" since my training days as a paid Community Intern at U.N.I.T.E. back in 2016-17 because I feel it adequately describes what these are as opposed to rules.
It entails understanding that we as a community or collective agree to certain community agreements that allow everyone to be seen, heard and cared for within the space we are working to cultivate and sustain.
These agreements are fluid and forever changing meaning they are not set in stone and they will be changed and decided on as a collective, for the safety and wellbeing of the collective, whenever necessary.
---------
ALL POSITIONS WITH OUR COLLECTIVE ARE UNPAID!
We deeply understand that we are forced to function and exist within a capitalist society, however, to start building the egalitarian and anarchist world we are always yearning for - we MUST be willing to volunteer and sacrifice our time and skills within our community, for the collective health, wellbeing and survival of the community.
“The real cost of community is inconvenience”
So, as of now, whether you grow with us, volunteer as someone to pick up or deliver incoming harvests, or commit to being one of our community organizers -- your volunteer position is unpaid and solely reliant on the donations the collective receives.
We are working to get funding in the future to eventually give an end of season stipend to our pick up & delivery volunteers to help cover the cost of gas, so when we secure that, we will let everyone know!
THERE IS NO COMMITMENT TO GROW AND GIVE WITH US!
Please feel free to stop anytime you need or want to!
We understand the deep commitment all of our food growers, volunteers and community organizers make when deciding to grow and give with us. So, there is NEVER a commitment to grow with us for an entire season or even the next. We are just grateful you are interested in growing food for the community!
We will have an annual re-sign up to ensure that you are still interested in growing with us for another season and it will likely be released in mid to late October 2027 to wrap up around early January 2028 to give you enough time through the holidays to fully decide. It will be the same process as when you first signed up for the collective.
Most of the events we host will be FREE to attend and participate in!
First, all of our "Growing A Giveaway" events will ALWAYS be free!
And second - we can assure you that if we are asking you to pay a fee for ANY of our events that we host or collaborate with to host, know that your fee is contributing directly to pay for a venue, supplies or to pay our food growers and volunteers whenever possible.
◘ The only money the collective will personally pocket is when you donate to our personal donation jars that we’ll have out at our events or through our online donation link!
Otherwise, the collective is run by unpaid volunteers who rely entirely on donations and community funding!