Natomas Garden & Arts Collective

The Natomas Garden and Arts Collective, Inc. (aka "NGAC", formerly known as the "The Natomas Garden and Arts Club") is a nonprofit public benefit corporation formed by residents of Natomas in 2017 and incorporated July 2018. In 2022 the NGAC has continued to work towards our main goal to build a permanent Garden & Arts Center and Public Art Gallery at the former fire station, located at 1591 Newborough Drive and Truxel Road in South Natomas. We have finalized our design specifications for the interior retrofit, the City is now taking bids for the work. The renovation should start this Spring 2023, with doors opening by 2024. This has been a long, arduous journey, and we thank all our supporters who have walked this road with us! In late 2022 the City of Sacramento and the NGAC began drafting an Occupancy Agreement for the property surrounding the building at 1591 Newborough Drive. With this document in place, we can start the landscaping projects we have been planning for so many years!

Thank you to our supporters and to the Board for patiently wading through the hard, dreary minutia of 1591 Newborough Dr.municipal planning. Throughout the tedium of planning, meeting, reviewing, and revising, The Natomas Garden & Arts Collective has thrived by continuing to expand our community networks, by strengthening our internal infrastructure, and by expanding and adapting our meaningful programming. As our name change implies, we have recognized, and we are trying to emphasize the important future civic and cultural role of our organization as administrators of the new Natomas Garden & Arts Center and Gallery. We are increasing and facilitating committee and volunteer activity, as well as providing professional training and opportunities for our growing Board of Directors. 

Chalk Art by Amie T

 We participated, as always, in Chalk It Up to Sacramento! In 2022 we braved the heat to create a joyous International Cuisine Chalk Art Festival at our soon-to-be gallery location. This festival aligned with our second art show on the exterior of 1591 Newborough Drive. In Spring, we celebrated our dedication to pollinators with an art show themed, "My Butterfly Journey Home". Our artists shared their own ethnic and cultural experience through the butterfly metaphor of migration and metamorphosis. Our Chalk Art Festival theme, "International Cuisine" was chosen to continue the celebration of our richly diverse community and at the same time promote our plans to install an International Cuisine Demonstration Garden next year.

We have continued to coordinate with volunteers to do regular workdays at the Ninos Community Garden, the Ninos Pollinator Garden, and have introduced ourselves to our Ninos neighbors at the International Garden of Many Colors. This year, with a $23,000 Shine Award from SMUD and contributions of money, goods and time from our community totaling over $20,000, the NGAC and our Community Partners established the Grassland Garden on the Ninos Parkway at Edmonton Drive. This new community resource, a 1/4-acre pollinator habitat, adjacent to Rio Tierra Jr, High and Hazel Strauch Elementary School will serve as an outdoor classroom for students and neighbors alike. Grasslands are excellent carbon sequesters and provide much needed habitat for pollinators like butterflies and bees. We will be celebrating the project this Spring when the interpretive signage is installed. These carefully designed signs beautifully illustrate the flora and fauna (and b

As we have since 2020, we continue to engage our members with monthly zoom presentations on a variety of community, art, and gardening topics shared by our inspirational friends and networks. As much as possible, we have gingerly restarted our in-person teen art and garden activities. These supplement the zoom meetings we hold and the series of You-Tube Videos we have created and made publicly available for instructional and educational purposes.

Inspiration Station Zoom Open Studio

We have broadened our programming to expand opportunities for local artists to show and sell their work. It is also our priority to develop other ways to pay our local creatives. In October, we hosted a Día De Los Muertos Workshop which was a wonderful success. This workshop was the first of many local creatives, artists, and gardeners will be paid by our organization in the years to come. Dia De Los Muertos Event Flyer

We loYoung Artists Outside the South Natomas Community Center & Libraryok forward to opening our new facility, where we can do paint 'n sip or make 'n take get-togethers, both inside our facility, or in the recesses of our beautifully landscaped gardens. We will soon enjoy art show openings at our (indoor) Gallery, and host poetry readings, spoken word, and acoustic music presentations in a great new space. 

Proposed Site Development 
1591 Newborough Dr.

It is a tribute to you, our supporters, for keeping aloft the vision of a thriving Garden & Arts facility. THANK YOU!