In One of L.A.’s Food Deserts, ‘Hands That Harmed Are Now Hands That Heal’

At an urban farm in Compton, the formerly incarcerated nourish residents hit by rising costs and cuts. Their “pay what you can” markets draw hundreds.

By Elizabeth Aguilera
Capital and Main
May 1, 2026

Excerpt:

Published on May 1, 2026 By Elizabeth Aguilera
Twice a month on Sunday mornings, hundreds of people stream through a chain link fence into a formerly overgrown softball field in Compton for fresh produce, vibrant flowers, tasty brunch and human connection.

Rows and rows of garden beds full of lush root vegetable greens poking out of the soil, broccoli and cauliflower heads on stalks and kale reaching for the blue sky greet visitors at ALMA Backyard Farms, an urban oasis tended largely by formerly incarcerated people seeking purpose in a community where one in three people live in a household with food insecurity.

“People come for connection — to the land, to plants, to others and to good food,” said ALMA co-founder Erika Cuellar. “This is a place that feeds your soul.”

The urban farm blooms on just under an acre of land belonging to St. Albert the Great Catholic Church, surrounded by low-slung single family homes, wide boulevards and warehouses and factories just blocks away.

Visitors browse fresh produce at ALMA’s pay-what-you-can market in Compton.

ALMA’s market, which springs to life every other Sunday, has become a ritual for hundreds of visitors and dozens of workers and volunteers. Some arrive for the beautiful collard greens and carrots. Some visit just for the farm-fresh brunch made by a chef who learned her trade at the knee of her Salvadoran grandmother. Others come to work the soil — finding a way to replant themselves in the process.

ALMA operates under a pay-what-you-can model that has become especially meaningful at a time when Southern California families are feeling the squeeze of skyrocketing gas and grocery prices, federal cuts to safety-net programs and aggressive immigration raids.

“If someone is hungry, they’re not turned away. If someone is feeling economic distress or challenges, they’re not questioned,” said Cuellar, the daughter of Mexican immigrants who grew up in nearby Watts. “They deserve the same food, the same ingredients, that anybody else does, and we’ve created a space that allows people to come together.”

Cuellar, 40, and her husband Richard Garcia, 46, founded ALMA more than a decade ago and built it into a growing nonprofit. For them, the farm addresses two overlapping crises in the Los Angeles area: People leaving incarceration with few places to find meaningful work and neighborhoods, known as food deserts, that have limited access to healthy and affordable food.

Read the complete article here.