Driving past the animated streets of downtown Gainesville toward the far east side, telephone poles turn into trees. Longleaf pines replace electricity lines. Paved roads ease into dirt roads.
Bordering the Morningside Nature Center sits a nursery with a brightly painted sign welcoming onlookers to GROW HUB.
GROW HUB, or Growing Real Opportunities for Work – Harvest of Urban Business, is a nonprofit nursery selling plants ranging from perennial flowers to native Florida vines and shrubs. The organization also operates a gift shop selling art and merchandise.
2025 marks the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed in 1990. The act protects people with disabilities from discrimination in the workplace and in everyday activities.
July was named Disability Pride Month in 2015, commemorating the signing of the ADA and celebrating the history, challenges and successes of people with disabilities. About 12% of people in Alachua County have a disability, according to data gathered by the American Community Survey.
People primarily visit GROW HUB for its nursery, but through its business model and events, the nonprofit sells more than just plants. Many of GROW HUB’s part-time employees are adults with disabilities, providing them with community and employment opportunities.
Gardening for growth
David Banes, a 66-year-old Gainesville resident, is the director of GROW HUB. He worked for Alachua County Public Schools for 37 years, including teaching in an isolated Exceptional Student Education classroom. There, he discovered how agriculture, specifically growing plants, could motivate and satisfy his students.
Vocational education focuses on building students’ confidence through skill-building. ACPS’ Growing Education Transition Training and the Farm to School to Work Hub programs are located before the entrance to the GROW HUB plant nursery.
In Florida, students can allow their school district to keep their diplomas to continue receiving special education and transition services until they decide to leave the public school system. Students with disabilities may defer their diplomas to continue gaining skills to prepare themselves for life after K-12 school.
Both ACPS programs are for high school graduates ages 18 to 22 who choose to defer their diplomas.
GROW HUB began in 2016 as an extension of Alachua County’s education programs, offering work opportunities to people with disabilities and allowing students 22 and older.
The first plants weren’t grown until 2018, Banes said. Horticultural projects helped his students by showing the process from start to finish. In any kind of work, it’s rare for someone to see a product from its inception to completion, Banes said.
“When they produce a plant, and the customer comes and they rave about the quality of it and how good it is,” Banes said, “You get the same thing that you got with a pet, self-satisfaction and empowerment of taking care of something.”
The nursery has seen constant growth in its revenue since 2020 despite renovations to the property, he said. It recently registered with the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, helping the organization assist people with disabilities with future employment.
“The plants are making the people positive, and the people are making the plants positive,” Banes said.
Meg Mackenzie is GROW HUB’s media and outreach coordinator. They lead a “disability committee,” where a group of team members gather in a town hall-style talk about the organization and its events.
Mackenzie said the organization’s goal is to provide a beautiful environment where individuals with and without disabilities can work and grow alongside each other.
“People can come to GROW HUB and see people with all kinds of abilities and disabilities working and contributing to a really great place,” Mackenzie said.
July’s monthlong celebration encourages more people to learn about disabilities, they said.
“It’s important for all people, whether you’re disabled or not. Young or old, to learn about disabilities, especially to listen to disabled people’s thoughts, perspectives,” they said.
A different business model
Alexa Heilman, a 27-year-old Gainesville resident, is the vocational program director and a supervisor at GROW HUB and has been with the organization since 2021.
Heilman studied at UF to be a horticultural therapist, someone who uses gardening activities to promote overall well-being. She uses what she learned to teach adults with disabilities how to work in a nursery, she said.
“We love to pay people to do work that they love,” Heilman said.
GROW HUB’s part-time employees are paid $13 an hour. For individuals on the Florida Medicaid waiver program, the annual earnings limit is approximately $20,000. More than one in three people with disabilities are on Medicaid in the U.S.
More work requirements have been added for Medicaid eligibility due to changes enacted through the One Bill Beautiful Bill Act, including a new 80-hours-per-month work requirement for able-bodied individuals between the ages of 19 and 64.
The earnings limits make it difficult for inclusive organizations and their employees. If an employee were to deposit a check over their earning limit, they could lose the services received through Medicaid, she said.
GROW HUB aims to provide a family-like environment for its staff, Heilman said. The plant nursery is run by employees who feel supported in the community, providing a space to learn transferable skills that can be applied to other areas of life.
“We’re not trying to be millionaires,” Heilman said. “We’re just trying to give meaningful work opportunities to a handful of adults on our staff.”
Recent cuts to the Department of Education have consolidated funding for special education grants given to states. The funding, as proposed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, would only provide about 11% of national average per-pupil cost for special education and related services. Additional funding comes from other federal, state and local sources.
GROW HUB hasn’t received promised grants, Heilman said, including funding for environmental education from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The $6.2 billion hold on federal education funds affects statewide and local grant systems, limiting the nursery’s expansion.
GROW HUB collaborates with local businesses to attract visitors to its property. It hosts pop-up markets on the second Saturday of certain months.
Melissa Desa, a 46-year-old Gainesville resident, is a co-founder of Working Food, a nonprofit that teaches gardening skills through workshops. It services a commercial kitchen open for small food businesses to rent.
Desa’s also the director of Working Food’s Seed Program. Working Food has multiple gardens and a community seed bank on GROW HUB’s property. The organization saves the plants it grows for schools and community gardens.
“It’s a great space where everyone can support each other’s missions, even though it’s not our own mission,” Desa said.
The area fencing GROW HUB accommodates other organizations and projects. There are gardens for Working Food and Santa Fe College, along with a space for two donkeys, named Lewis and Clark.
Room for creativity
GROW HUB employees participate in an arts class every Tuesday, sponsored by UF Health’s Arts in Medicine program as part of their vocational training.
Kris Sullivan, a 49-year-old Gainesville resident, has run the class with her co-teacher Sarah Hinds since 2019.
AIM offers a variety of visual arts classes at GROW HUB, including papier-maché, clay sculptures, dancing and music. The nursery decorates its walls with a mural made of bottle caps employees collected themselves.
“It’s the only time every week that everyone’s all in the same room,” Sullivan said. “Everyone is generally in high spirits when we’re together.”
The class offers a communal space where employees can celebrate milestones together, including birthdays. Outside of the class, employees focus on their individual tasks, like working the cash register or helping in the garden, she said.
On the last Tuesday of every month, the workshop is open to anyone with a disability. The sessions, held free of charge, happen in the same location as usual classes at GROW HUB.
Crafts made by employees – like tie-dye creations, sun catchers and mugs – are sold in the gift shop. Painted gourds made to be hot-air balloons and baskets made of muscadine hang above.
Sarah Herkamp, a 48-year-old Melrose resident, is one of 23 part-time employees at GROW HUB. The 45-minute drive to work is worth it because GROW HUB is where she wants to be, she said.
“This is hands down the best place I’ve ever worked,” Herkamp said. “They get that your mind doesn’t quite work the same way as everybody else’s does, but they encourage [it].”
Herkamp works in the gardens, creating fertilizers made with worm casting for the nursery’s plants. She also grows a variety of gourds, including Tennessee Dancing Gourds, to use for creative projects. She calls herself the “Johnny Appleseed of gourds.”
She emptied a net of gourds on a couch, describing her uses for them. Among the trinkets in the gift shop, she grabbed a basket made with muscadine vine, unhooking it from the ceiling to show it off. At GROW HUB, Herkamp said she has the space to experiment.
“You can start these projects, and you see what happens,” Herkamp said. “Let’s try it. Let’s find out.”
Contact Alanna Robbert at arobbert@alligator.org. Follow her on X @alannafitzr.
Alanna Robbert is a journalism senior and a general assignment reporter for the Metro Desk in Summer 2025. In her free time, she enjoys reading and going to the gym.
