Robert “Bobby” Delano Gentry was a quintessential renaissance man—a lover of the arts, an artist, a teacher, a dedicated cook, and a master gardener.  Bobby passed away in 2024, and yet he has left an enduring legacy for all that he cherished in our community. His wife, Norma Gentry, is creating a distinctive garden memorial to keep his spirit alive.

Gentry is partnering with the University of Arizona (UA) School Garden Workshop, a program that has taught countless Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) students over the years to learn, plant, nurture and harvest the rewards of their labor. The workshop utilizes UA student interns as mentors. They are creating a substantial new garden adjacent to Mansfeld Middle School, which will be named Bobby’s Garden.

Thanks to the many generous donations from their friends in Tucson and all over the country, almost $20,000 has been raised to build the garden in Bobby’s honor. “There could be no greater tribute for continuing Bobby’s legacy of sharing knowledge and the joy of gardening with others,” says Gentry. “Every time we had kids in our house, he’d take them to the garden. He would be so happy about sharing the garden with them. Gardening teaches children so many lessons.” 

The workshop uses gardening as the focal point of a holistic strategy to build a healthy community. Bobby’s Garden will be an integral part of the School Garden Workshop’s expansion project, which has already received an impressive $1 million pledge from the Sprouts Healthy Community Foundation—earning it the nickname “Sprouts House.”

The Sprouts House will serve as the School Garden Workshop program headquarters, the school gardens culinary education center, and food literacy hub. It is also envisioned as the regional and national professional development training center for training teachers. Moses Thompson, Director of the School Garden Workshop, shares, “When we combine inspired university students with motivated classroom teachers, school garden magic happens.”

Focused on underserved schools, the School Garden Workshop helps alleviate food scarcity while empowering students with practical skills in gardening and healthy eating. The program goes beyond the garden, providing meal kits for kids, field trips, culinary lessons, and training for educators to weave gardening into their classroom curriculum.

Q & A With Moses Thompson, Director of the UA School Garden Workshop

You started as a counselor at Manzo School on the west side of Tucson. What was the impetus to make the switch to gardener?
In 2006, I was hired by Manzo Elementary School in Barrio Hollywood as a school counselor. I discovered that traditional counseling in my office with the tools at my disposal felt inauthentic, and they were not helping me. I was struggling to connect to the students and the community. While working with the school student council, we decided to start a garden as a service project.
Once I started gardening together with kids, things took off like wildfire. The counseling was less forced, and the conversation was richer in this context. The traditional way of counseling created a stigma for kids in crisis. With gardening, counseling went from being a stigma to becoming a privilege. We teach students the benefits of connecting with nature through a therapeutic lens. 
I also discovered that the gardens were a powerful way to build relationships with and to engage in the community in a way they were excited about. We feel like we tapped into their heritage—agriculture and gardening, the heritage that’s been in Tucson for a really long time—especially in neighborhoods like Barrio Hollywood.  

When did you form a collaboration with the School Garden Workshop?
In 2012, there really were two institutions that came together.  I connected with Sallie Marston, who was training interns at the UA to support school gardens at other schools, not Manzo, and we joined forces for a couple of years. 

Then, in 2014 she brought me over to the university, which has a formal partnership with TUSD. TUSD provides staff funding so we can train and inspire the teachers to embrace the program concept. The university provides the intern support. We put those two things together, and that’s the secret sauce that sustains the gardens. 

I understand that gardening was an important part of your life growing up in metropolitan Phoenix. How did your father influence your love of gardening?
It’s interesting, because even as a city kid, I recall that every night my father would come home from work, crack a beer, and go outside. He would water things and commune with nature in our backyard garden while we watched the sunset. As a young kid, he would give me tasks to perform. He loved planting and growing things, and it made such an impression on me that now producing things is part of my DNA.

How does Bobby’s Garden fit into Mansfeld Middle School’s Sprouts House Garden expansion?
Mansfeld Middle School has been a strategic school site for our program. Kids from elementary schools like Manzo and other schools with robust gardens go to Mansfeld. What we know from educational literature is that middle school is really a defining moment in the life of a K-12 student—where students solidify how they see themselves, when self-perceptions are cemented. We felt it was critical to extend the school garden experience to middle schoolers. We were already in elementary and high schools, so Mansfeld was a missing link in our pipeline, a project we couldn’t accomplish without the support of donors.

We pitched the project to the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation. Their vision is entirely aligned with ours, so there is no disconnect between us. Not only have they donated $1 million, I could not pick a better private sector partnership for this work. They have been amazing to us, and we are really honored to have them support our expansion project.

Ray Flores, whose family owns Flores Concepts (El Charro) restaurants, has been providing support to our program for a long time—he’s always hustling for us. Fresh produce from the program gardens is featured in their menu items, and they make packaged salsa with our produce. 

After the stars aligned for us with Sprouts, he connected me with Norma Gentry. Norma had contacted him about a vision she had to create a garden in memory of Bobby. We met for lunch, and she told me about Bobby. The timing and spirit were perfect for the garden build we had on the horizon. She has raised the money for a flagship garden at Mansfeld, and has rights to the Named Gardens, (Bobby’s Garden). We’re excited to put his name and legacy on the garden at Mansfeld.

Funding has also been secured for the Named Community Classroom (Zuckerman Family Foundation) and the Named Garden Classroom (T.R. Brown Foundation). As we look to completely fund Sprouts House, our last piece of the financial puzzle is to find a $350,000 naming rights donor for the Culinary Education Center.

Which crops will you grow in Bobby’s Garden and where does the food go?
We’re lucky that the best growing season is September through March, a time frame when we have a captive audience of kids in school. We will grow lettuce, spinach, cabbage, kale, chard, Bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, beets, tomatoes, cilantro, fava beans and edible flowers.

We do food distribution and send meal kits home with students to prepare dinner for their families. Some of the harvest goes to the TUSD cafeterias. From time-to-time we will “sell” our produce at holiday markets on a donation basis. We also teach culinary cooking classes with the fruits and vegetables we grow. 

You’ve gotten international recognition for your innovative work. What specifics about the execution of your vision do you attribute to your success?
I’ve always led with a mindset of abundance. The program has experienced tremendous growth, and there are now more than 70 active school gardens that are supported by the School Garden Workshop program. 

The people around me, like Sallie Marston, the founder of the School Garden Project, and J.P. Jones, the former Dean and current advisory board member of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, have greatly contributed to our success. Ten years ago, they came up with the idea for a school garden workshop collaboration between the UA and TUSD which is now an internationally renowned model.

What is the most rewarding part of your job?
It’s always working with the kids in the garden. That’s hands down what brings me joy.  As someone who’s developing as a leader, working with the staff and seeing staff become competent is now also bringing me so much joy. Our program opens doors and supports people in their life trajectory. I’m constantly looking for ways to increase our impact, like what Sprouts House is doing to raise the profile of the program. 

What is the most challenging part of your job?
This is a chaotic time in history to do this work. No one should ever have to be hungry in our community. But financial threats to Medicaid could have a ripple effect that may result in cuts to free lunches for school children. And any monetary cuts to public education affect our program.
The School Garden Workshop receives support from the University of Arizona and the Tucson Unified School Districts, but largely operates like a nonprofit, and couldn’t do this work without the support of private foundations and donors.   

We have purposefully chosen to expand our reach even further by taking on a huge fundraising endeavor for the Mansfeld Middle School Garden Workshop during this challenging time. We are fully committed to being intentional in order to rise to the challenge.  I know that we’ll get where we need to be. The kids need this type of enrichment now more than ever. 

To learn more about this educational project, visit SchoolGardens.arizona.edu/donate. 

Suzie Agrillo is a freelance writer in Tucson and a frequent contributor to Natural Awakenings. She focuses on writing about the arts, inspirational people, and the human connection. Connect at [email protected].