Teresa Wolk Hayes, The Little Red Hen Nursery & Gift Shop - Chico
Teresa Wolk Hayes, is the Executive Director and founder of the Little Red Hen Nursery and Gift shop in Chico. The Little Red Hen is a 501c3 non-profit corporation whose mission is to serve children and adults with developmental disabilities (DD), which it does through a variety of hands-on learning and employment opportunities for the developmentally disabled in a retail nursery (for absolutely ANYONE who loves to garden), greenhouse and potting facility, and a home and garden oriented gift shop. Photo Above: Teresa Wolk Hayes, The Little Red Hen, standing in the front row with employees Alan Jackson, Kevin Dzerigian and Brandon Shoop, who are working the coldhouse crew under the supervision of Jim Belles, at back.
To meet Teresa Hayes in person is to encounter a remarkable combination of the legendary Little Red Hen of childhood storybook fame and a garden Angel: If she has to, Teresa gets things done ALL BY HERSELF, but mostly she likes to work together with others and she loves sharing the results of her hard work with everyone and anyone. And many of her results are made possible through the beauty and wonderfully therapeutic aspects of gardening.
Teresa started adult life as a trained Registered Nurse having graduated from Chico State. She had always loved to garden. But when her eldest son was 3 1/2 and diagnosed with broad DD, her life as she knew it tilted somewhat on its axis. During the next phase of her life, in response to her son’s diagnoses she truly called on the therapeutic aspects of gardening for herself. “Gardening at that time helped me to heal.” It also helped her to move her life to its next amazing phase.
One of the things that Teresa quickly discovered all those years ago was that not a lot of programs existed – interventional, educational or therapeutic or employment – within a reasonable distance, to help her or to help her son. But one thing she knew was that he loved to swim and be in the water. As time went on, Teresa developed a playgroup of other parents with children that had similar diagnoses and who also seemed to benefit from the experience of swimming. Swim therapy, more precisely. “It was a self education for me,” laughs Teresa, shaking her head, remembering. “It was parenting, networking, sanity, support and friendship - for the parents and the kids!”
Eventually, the swim club expanded to include such things as a lifeguard, instructors, snacks and toys. As the informal playgroup turned into a more formal “program” and after a hard divorce, Teresa could not pay for the program expenses herself. As any industrious gardener might, Teresa began potting up cuttings and shoots of plants from her own garden and selling them in her driveway. One early experience also included pulling a lot of old iris bulbs out of the dumpster of a big-box store and growing them along. “They were beautiful,” Teresa tells me, “People loved those iris.” People began donating plants to her so that she could sell them and support her swim therapy program. And it became clear to her that not only did many of the kids and adults who came to Teresa’s house like to swim, but they also liked to play in the dirt with plants. “Many of the children we work with are also diagnosed with Autism - the number one diagnosed DD right now. It has become my area of expertise - and experiences such as feeling dirt or playing in the water are very therapeutic to Autistic children.” Photo Above: A selection of items outside the Little Red Hen Gift Shop on 20th street.
Teresa’s perseverance, determination and hard work earned her a great deal of respect and help from the Far Northern Regional Center (www.farnorthernrc.org/), which has advised and supported The Little Red Hen and its goals for much of its journey from back-yard swim club to full-fledged and multi-branched corporation offering diverse employment opportunities to more than 50 adults with developmental disabilities and many diverse learning opportunities for children with .
When Teresa was told that in order to get and maintain accreditation for her swim program she would need to re-locate the plant selling business, she mentioned her need for a new location to long-time friends, Mendal and Nadine Tochterman. Mendal’s response was: “I have just the spot – an old lot in downtown that I used to weed as a boy.” Congregation Beth Israel also stepped up. “They taught me to do the stepping stone projects, pulled plants from their own gardens, propagated thousands of roses and worked to get the nursery up and running before I could afford to hire staff,” says Teresa, amazed by all the help even now. In 2000 The Little Red Hen Nursery opened on the corner of 8th and Wall Street in Downtown Chico, a lot large enough to start a true full-service nursery open to the public. Photo Above: A shot of the retail nursery yard.
Other kind-hearted souls from the community also began donating bigger items. Benefactors included Irv and Nitza Schiffman, Fran and David Halimi, Jean and Norm Corwin, the Butte Glenn Medical Alliance Dream House Project, and Dan and Marilee Box of Box Brother’s Wholesale Nursery, among others, all of whom believed in the importance of bringing better programming and options for developmentally disabled children and adults into the region.
From then to now a lot has happened due to the hard work and persistence of Teresa (The Little Red Hen herself) and her staff: The Little Red Hen became a chapter of the Autism Society; Scot and Keri Long donated the use of another lot around the corner from the retail nursery as a plant storage and propagation area, providing a whole new level of learning and employment opportunities; Box Brothers donated a large cold greenhouse for that lot; the sweet and well-stocked gift shop opened on 20th street, the retail and hard goods aspect of which provided employment and offices for a whole new set of people; equally dedicated and hard-working General Manager Terri Dowd came on board; The Little Red Hen helped to launch 3 micro-businesses with developmentally disabled adult entrepreneurs, including: Big Andy’s Worms, T.J.’s Cactus and Succulents, and the Floral Chicks; the Far Northern Regional Center and Butte-Glenn Medical Society Alliance’s Decorator Dream House provided a lovely new bathroom facility at the Nursery site; AND The Little Red Hen has been voted The Best Nursery in Chico by the Chico News and Review THREE years in a row (2006- 2008). Photo Above: A shot of the retail nursery yard.
As of today, close to 90% of the plants sold by The Little Red Hen are donated by other growers from all around the state. The rest are grown from seeds or cuttings at The Little Red Hen’s own greenhouses. The nursery sells a full range of plants suited to our region, of organic compost and soil ammendments, of tools and garden accessories. While the Little Red Hen serves hundreds of children with DD each year, the administration of all of their programs are fully funded, which means that all proceeds from sales go back to supporting the mission of the The Little Red Hen. Photo Above: A shot of the retail nursery yard.
The nursery, greenhouse, and retail store regularly take on new employees and interns, with a steady crew of supervisors who help to show they way. New employees are supported and trained and then fully expected to live up to their own abilities for and commitments to working responsibilities. Classrooms of all ages regularly visit and work in and around the nursery and greenhouse, allowing kids who are not well-suited to being in a class-room all day the profound benefits of digging in the dirt, planting seeds, painting labels and making garden stepping stones. Photo Above: A selection of the stepping stones made in classes run by The Little Red Hen.
On one of my many visits to the the nursery, an elementary classroom was visiting. They were watering and potting and painting and I had the opportunity to chat with the teacher. The experience the children get by coming to the nursery on a regular basis is transformative for them, he told me. He’s been bringing his classes to the The Little Red Hen for four years, and hopes to do so for many more.
For the future, Teresa is now dreaming of a new addition to The Little Red Hen’s world: a Therapy Demonstration Garden open to the public. Created by and for the people who make the Little Red Hen what she is. With paths and activities, incorporating the stepping stones made at the Nursery and plants with therapeutic texture, taste, fragrance or just beauty. Photo Above: A story-board for the future Demonstration Therapy Garden, which is next on the list of The Little Red Hen’s accomplishments.
On The Little Red Hen’s quarterly newsletter, The Watering Can, is a quote that resonates with me: “Gardening is down-to-earth therapy!” All that the Little Red Hen has accomplished in the past 12 or more years demonstrates just how true this is. And the Little Red Hen is clucking in satisfaction.
In a North State Garden is an educational outreach program of the Northern California Natural History Museum and a co-production of Northstate Public Radio.