Volunteer Profile: Chris

Chris prepares pots for planting at the Boise Vertical Farm greenhouse, April 2023.

Chris’s story begins in Southern California, in the 1970’s and ‘80s. Her family moved here when she was a child, and she grew up in and around Los Angeles. It was there that she met her first husband, Mark.

“We had a wonderful marriage, a wonderful relationship, and then he brought home cocaine.”

At first, she avoided it. But eventually, the pressure grew, and she soon found herself falling deeper and deeper into the lifestyle.

“I never liked the cocaine… It was just one of those things, it was there,” Chris says. “But then I saw how bad it was getting… The people coming into my house were scary people.”

Then, one night, everything began to change. After attempting to break up a party in their home that had gotten out of hand, her husband banished her from the house. She found herself lost and alone, wandering the streets of Los Angeles in the middle of the night.

“I stepped off the curb, and I sat down in the gutter. I was just deflated... And I looked down, and I could see the light in my chest, and it flickered.”

Chris writes plant labels at the Boise Vertical Farm greenhouse, April 2023.

She eventually got out of the gutter and got herself home, but after that point she knew things had to change. After being kicked out of her home a second time a few months later, Chris was arrested. She spent the night in jail and was later put on probation. 

Whether it was luck, fate, or something else, Chris was released early from her probation. At that point, she had given birth to a son, and she didn’t want her child to grow up in a dangerous environment. 

Still, her path to freedom was neither easy nor immediate. After several more ups and downs, she eventually got into contact with her sister in San Francisco, took her son, and left. With the help of her sister, Chris rented a van and returned to Los Angeles to pack up her things. Even now, decades later, the memory is still painful to her.

“Mark begged me not to leave him. I said ‘I can’t stay. If I stay with you, I’ll go down with you, and I’ll never come back up.’”

Chris adds soil to pots for planting, Boise Vertical Farm greenhouse, April 2023.

As painful as it was, she knew that leaving was the right decision. The light she had seen flickering in her chest that night in the gutter had grown stronger, and that day, she saw another sign that she was on the right path.

“I backed the van out of the driveway… And it was so cloudy, but there was this circle of sunlight, right on the dash. And I looked at my son, and I said ‘honey, I don’t know how we’re going to survive, but we’re going to get out of here.’”

And so, at 36 years old, Chris returned to Boise, moved in with her mother, and prepared to start over. She got a job, and later enrolled at BSU to get her degree. After graduation, she worked with the Bureau of Land Management, and although she changed positions several times, she was later able to retire with all of the benefits of a federal employee.

“It just saddens me because there’s so many people who can’t get out of that. They don’t know how to take that first step, and it’s not an easy first step,” she says. “But each struggle got me to a better place.”

Chris speaks with Boise Vertical Farm co-founder Jeff Middleton at the greenhouse, April 2023.

Chris first learned about Boise Vertical Farm after its founder, Jeff Middleton, came to speak at one of her Mended Hearts meetings. She connected with his story and his mission, and soon decided to start volunteering.

“I used to have a huge, huge garden. I enjoyed it. After the heart failure, though, I was too sick. But I’ve enjoyed having my hands in the dirt again… I love meeting the folks there and hearing a little bit of their stories, because it just rings so true.”

Sharing stories, Chris believes, is one of the most important ways to help others get out of bad situations, or avoid them altogether.

“People can survive it. That’s what they need to know. It’s going to take hard work… It’s not something anyone can do for you. But there’s good things out there.”