North Bay Spirit Award winner has managed Santa Rosa community garden for over a decade

When volunteers show up at the Harvest for the Hungry Garden in Santa Rosa, they inevitably check in with one man, a human encyclopedia who always seems to know just what needs to be done on a given day and who best to do the job.

Martin Cibulka knows who can’t bend so well anymore and who has knee or back problems. He has a good idea of each volunteer’s skills or what they especially like doing in the garden. His attention to these personal details helps make working in the garden so pleasurable for so many people.

For more than a decade, the former software developer has devoted some 20 hours a week to managing one of the oldest and most successful community gardens in Sonoma County, harvesting thousands of pounds of fresh organic produce distributed free to those in need.

In the face of praise, Cibulka blanches and quickly deflects credit to the roughly 30 volunteers who regularly show up each week to work in the dirt, spreading compost, sowing seeds, planting starts, weeding, watering, troubleshooting and harvesting.

“Many have been coming for 10 years or more. Everybody wants to help and get out and do something,” he said of his committed crew of workers who enjoy spending healthy time outdoors on a project that contributes directly to the well-being of others.

The Harvest for the Hungry Garden amounts to a small urban farm; it’s part of a large food network of local nonprofits and food pantries that depend on its produce to feed struggling families, single moms, the elderly and the homeless. The complexity of production and distribution on this scale requires someone with an eye on the big picture and all the moving parts.

“At this point, he’s essential. Nothing can happen to him,” said Elaine Walter, a former teacher who is president of the board, with her tongue only partially in her cheek. “We’re all busting our buns out here but he allows us to bust our buns in an organized fashion, and I really appreciate that.”

Last year during the pandemic, the garden produced a record amount — more than 30,000 pounds of kale, lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, squash, onions, garlic, basil and fruits that are costly and beyond the financial reach of many people who rely on assistance to put food on the table.

The coronavirus pandemic only increased the number of people experiencing food insecurity in the county and the nation. Demand at the Redwood Empire Food Bank doubled. Cibulka has always looked for ways to increase production at Harvest for the Hungry, and with the county entering lockdown just as the spring planting season was getting underway in 2020, he tried to step up the output even more.

The garden each year holds one of the biggest plant sales in the county, selling starts for a huge variety of food crops and some perennials at bargain-basement prices. The massive sale is their primarily fundraiser for the year, and gardeners line up around the block to get in early for the best selection. Last year, Cibulka and a group of other volunteers moved the sale online with only a month’s notice, a huge and complicated pivot that kept them working many nights until 2 a.m. to pull it off.

For his efforts on behalf of the hungry, Cibulka, 55, was selected as February’s North Bay Spirit Award winner. A project of The Press Democrat and Comcast, the award calls out volunteers who go all in for a cause that benefits the community.

“He is a dedicated and passionate community leader,” said Mary Lockhart, resident services coordinator for senior housing with Burbank Housing, a nonprofit dedicated to affordable housing. “He ensures that literally tons of organic fruit and vegetables go to the needy in Sonoma County.”

Lockhart will pick up and bring produce deliveries from the garden to several low-income senior housing communities. So no bit of food goes to waste, Cibulka will sometimes bring extra veggies on his own.

“He would pop by every now and then with his arms full of kale,” Lockhart said. “For the manager to take his time to drop by extras, that’s pretty neat.”

Some of the recipients are so happy when the produce arrives they have been known to break out into applause.

Founded 34 years ago

The Harvest for the Hungry Garden spreads over 1¼ acres owned by the Christ Church United Methodist on Yulupa Avenue. The church provides the land but the garden operates as a separate entity, paying for water and other costs, from seeds to soil, which run about $8,000 a year. It also receives in-kind donations from local nurseries and other individuals and groups.

The Harvest for the Hungry Garden was founded in 1987 by Marge Cerleti and Muchtar Salzmann, who owns the Santa Rosa nursery Emerisa Gardens. Over the decades it has become a model in the efficient use of space, with 30 no-till beds watered by drip irrigation. It includes a small fruit orchard, a wildlife habitat area, a medicinal plant garden and a demonstration garden. The Sonoma County Master Gardeners, a project of UC Cooperative Extension, also provide assistance and expertise.

“I’m so grateful they had this initiative,” Cibulka said of the garden’s founders. “People have these ideas and then ripples go out. And now 30 years later, hundreds or thousands of volunteers have come out and benefited from this.”

Harvest for the Hungry directs the bulk of its bounty to Bethlehem Towers, a city-supported senior apartment complex near downtown Santa Rosa; Burbank Housing; The Living Room, which provides services to homeless and at-risk women and children; FISH (Friends in Service Helping) and Elisha’s Pantry, a food bank steps away from the garden that is an interfaith project of the Christ Church United Methodist, Congregation Shomrei Torah and Bethlehem Lutheran Church.

Cibulka’s wife Lien, also a longtime garden volunteer, is the coordinator for Elisha’s Pantry.

“Martin is always a learner. So, for him, the garden was a great place to learn something he’s not familiar with. He’s a computer geek,” Lien Cibulka said of her husband, who she affectionately calls Farmer Mark.

“He’s always digging and researching about how to grow vegetables and produce in a better way. Every other day he is out there with this team of amazing volunteers. They want to grow as much as they can in a bonding way, and that way they’ll have a lot more vegetables to give out to the community.”

Serendipity

The pair had met at college in Boulder, Colorado, where the Czech-born Cibulka had moved to obtain his master’s degree. He had expected to move back to Europe when he completed his studies, but his plans changed after he met Lien, a native of Vietnam.

Twenty years ago, the couple was looking for a life change after living in Redmond, Washington, where Cibulka had worked for Microsoft. Sonoma County beckoned with its natural beauty. The pair opened the Kindred Handcrafts (now Kindred Fair Trade Handcrafts) shop in downtown Santa Rosa. They had spare time too, and looked for something interesting and meaningful to fill it.

They came upon a notice tacked up at the old New College in Railroad Square that would transform their lives and bring them purpose. “Do you want to learn how to grow organic food and feed the hungry people in Sonoma County?”

Cibulka, who grew up in a condominium in a small town in Austria near the border with Switzerland, didn’t know the first thing about gardening. But he was intrigued. They both signed on. Cibulka started out spreading mulch and weeding while learning everything he could under then-manager Geoff Rauch.

“He was an incredible gardener,” Cibulka recalled. “He was really inspiring. Like the horse whisperer, he was the plant whisperer. He was so uplifting and we had these great workshops. Sometimes 30 or 40 people would come.”

However, Rauch’s salary was paid by a grant from a foundation that overnight lost everything in the Enron energy scandal, Cibulka said. There were no funds to pay for a garden manager. Cibulka decided to step into the void.

“By that time I just really enjoyed coming here. So I read tons of books,” he said. “And you learn through trial and error and from the many volunteers who keep on coming. I figured things out.”

While he loved his computer work, he found it no longer satisfied him, not the way watching a seed grow into something to eat did.

“You grow things from seed and it’s magic,“ he said, taking a break on a picnic table beneath an arbor in the center of the garden recently. ”Sometimes in the morning in a beautiful light, you see a row of multicolored lettuces and it’s so great.“

Healthy food makes a difference

Lien Cibulka said the community has been hammered hard by wildfires, floods and then a pandemic, increasing the demand for food assistance.

“I’ve seen a lot of families who would not have needed food before this. All these people had jobs and were trying to make a good life, and then everything happened,” she said. Some recipients arrive at Elisha’s Pantry a couple hours early just to make sure they get their two boxes, one with canned goods and staples and the other filled with fresh produce from Harvest for the Hungry.

Becky Lawson said the fresh food has been essential for her and her daughter Lexi, 9, who eats mostly vegetarian. An event planner who was widowed right before the pandemic, Lawson has found herself in need of assistance.

“I buy organic when I can. Knowing it’s coming from a local organic garden harvested by people in my community makes a huge difference. It produces less of a carbon footprint.”

Lawson said she and Lexi consult children’s cookbooks or look up new recipes online to find tasty things to make with what’s in season. They live just around the corner from Elisha’s Pantry and the garden, so they ride their bikes over frequently.

“It’s fun for Lexi to see the progress of the vegetables and how they use the different beds in different seasons,” Lawson said.

Volunteer camaraderie

The garden has been a godsend not only for the people who eat from it, but for the volunteers who take pleasure in working outside, said Carol Hasenick, a volunteer coordinator for the Harvest for the Hungry Garden.

That’s particularly true with so many people isolated by the pandemic, people yearning for human contact and things to do. For the first time last year, they had to turn away volunteers, Hasenick said.

“Martin is the main person who holds it together. When I come in, he’s the first person I’ll see. He appreciates whatever any of us is able to do. He comes from a place of wanting to give back and use his skills.”

Volunteers are now ramping up for spring planting and the annual plant sale, which features an astonishing selection of crops. In past years they’ve offered more than 150 varieties of tomatoes alone.

They’re still working out the plant sale logistics. Last year’s online ordering proved too difficult, so they intend to come up with some sort of safe pickup system to keep the fundraiser going. It usually brings in $10,000 to $15,000 a year.

Pure pleasure

Cibulka doesn’t feel like he’s making any personal sacrifice, despite the many hours of physical and mental labor he puts into the garden.

“This is just something that speaks to me. I’m happy coming out here. I look forward to it,” he said, a wide grin creasing his face. “I still do after 20 years. There not a single day where I think, ‘Oh gosh. I’ve got to go.’ It doesn’t matter. Even on miserable days I come here and there are eight volunteers ready to go and I can’t believe it. I’m so happy.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at 707-521-5204 or meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @megmcconahey.