Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens

Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens mission is simple, to support community wellness in nature. We envision a world where people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds connect in nature.

Founded in 2014, Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens emerged from a passionate belief in the profound healing, educational, and restorative powers of nature. Over the past decade, we have grown from a foundational vision into a vital community asset in Orange County, establishing deep roots at therapeutic outdoor sanctuaries like the certified butterfly and native plant gardens at Los Rios Park in San Juan Capistrano.

From the beginning, our work has been driven by a commitment to horticultural education, environmental stewardship, and accessible mental and physical wellness. We design inclusive, hands-on programming and volunteer opportunities that actively serve "all populations," with a proud, specialized focus on uplifting seniors/older adults and people with disabilities. Through collaborative community effort, our gardens provide low-impact physical activity, sensory stimulation, social connection, and a peaceful refuge from modern stressors.

As we look toward the future, Goin Native continues to expand its reach—cultivating eco-literacy and preventative mental health tools through innovative partnerships, living classrooms, and accessible green spaces. By breaking down barriers to the outdoors, we ensure that every individual, regardless of circumstance, can experience the grounding benefits of the natural world.

Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens is a recognized innovator in responsive, nature-based healing, serving as a vital lifeline for individuals navigating physical, mental, and emotional health challenges throughout Orange County.

Our organization is uniquely positioned to bridge clinical care, community wellness, and specialized education. We are led by a founder and Executive Director, Marianne Taylor who is a Credentialed CTE Teacher in Agriculture and Natural Resources, a Master Gardener, and a former Orange County Department of Education, educator who created and developed 10 sensory school gardens over 7 years for the counties most vulnerable youth—backed by more than 15 years of dedicated personal volunteer experience serving seniors and individuals with special needs.

Bridging Nature and Clinical Care
For the past 6 years, our flagship program has delivered highly successful, weekly virtual horticulture therapy sessions for patients at the CHOC/Rady Children's Health Mental Health Inpatient Center. Recognizing that acute clinical environments can feel isolating, our innovative virtual programming literally brings the outside world into secure hospital rooms. By introducing living, tactile elements of nature to young patients (ages 5 to 17), we provide immediate sensory grounding, a constructive creative outlet, and a profound sense of peace during acute crises.

Healthcare-Backed Preventative School Gardens
The overwhelming success of this inpatient program caught the attention of another prominent CHOC/Rady department in 2025. Partnering directly with their community health teams, they have funded our expansion out of the hospital and into the community, allowing us to create two thriving school wellness gardens. By embedding these living classrooms directly into local school environments, this partnership uses nature as a critical conduit for preventative health care—equipping youth with mindfulness tools, nourishing food, and emotional resilience—wrapping them in a blanket of support, in hopes of preventing future mental health crisis.

Key Outcomes & Future Vision:
Immediate Emotional Healing: Transforming clinical and educational spaces into soft, restorative environments that reduce anxiety and lower stress levels.

Upstream Preventative Care: Reaching children early in their everyday learning environments to foster long-term mental wellness and coping skills.

A 10-Year Vision for Expansion: Combining our founder’s deep institutional expertise with the clinical backing and funding of CHOC/Rady to scale our school-based wellness gardens over the next decade, ensuring thousands of local children have equitable access to nature's healing benefits.

To successfully scale our proven, healthcare-backed models and fulfill our 10-year vision of planting wellness gardens across Orange County, Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens urgently requires foundational operational and capacity-building support. For years, our high-impact programming has been passionately managed out of the private homes of our Executive Director and core volunteers. To efficiently deliver our weekly virtual horticulture therapy kits to CHOC/Rady and aggressively scale our school wellness garden installments, it is time to centralize our operations under one roof.

To transition into a fully sustainable, professionalized operation, our primary resource needs include:

1. Physical Infrastructure & Logistics
Dedicated Warehouse Space: A central hub to securely store outside furniture, raised beds, soil, plants, fertilizers, and tools, as well as a dedicated area to assemble weekly virtual therapy kits.
Secure Commercial Facility Parking: While we already own a dedicated commercial work truck, we urgently require a secure facility to house it. Moving the vehicle and its high-value landscaping equipment out of crowded residential driveways ensures asset security and streamlined daily loading.
Facility Operations: Support for essential overhead, including warehouse utilities, commercial liability insurance, fleet insurance, and robust security systems to protect our tools and vehicle.

2. Human Capital & Core Staffing
To safely execute professional garden installations and maintain organizational integrity, we need to transition from a purely volunteer-dependent model to a secure, expert staff of five (5) key roles:
In-House Landscape/Garden Designer: To design therapeutically sound, accessible, and compliant school wellness spaces.
Field Installation & Irrigation Specialists: Professional crew members to physically construct the gardens and install sustainable water systems.
Bookkeeper / Office Manager: To manage expanding healthcare contracts, track grant compliance, and oversee daily administrative logistics.

The True Impact of This Funding
Securing this operational support is not just about renting space or hiring staff—it is about capacity.

Removing the physical bottlenecks of working out of personal garages and driveways will immediately streamline our supply chain, maximize our founder's highly specialized expertise, and give Goin Native the physical engine required to deliver preventative mental health sanctuaries to thousands of vulnerable children across our region.

Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens proudly serves all cities and communities throughout Orange County, California. While our current geographic footprint is deeply rooted in OC—providing vital programming at local schools and regional healthcare facilities—our strategic long-term vision is built for regional expansion.

Once we achieve maximum operational capacity within Orange County, our scalable, healthcare-backed model is designed to expand into Los Angeles County, San Diego County, and beyond, bringing nature-based preventative mental health care to youth and vulnerable populations across Southern California

Statement from the CEO/Executive Director
For over 15 years, my life’s passion has been rooted at the intersection of nature, education, and human wellness. Witnessing firsthand how a simple connection to the earth can spark joy in a senior or bring profound comfort to a child with special needs is what drove me to found Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens in 2014. My years as a Credentialed CTE Teacher in Agriculture and Natural Resources, a Master Gardener, and an educator with the Orange County Department of Education taught me a fundamental truth: nature isn't just a place we visit; it is a powerful ecosystem of healing.

What began as a foundational vision has blossomed into something far greater than I ever imagined. Today, our groundbreaking virtual horticulture therapy sessions bring the soothing, tactile rhythm of the natural world directly into the clinical inpatient rooms at CHOC/Rady Children's Health. Furthermore, our healthcare-funded expansion into local schools allows us to plant living classrooms that wrap vulnerable youth in a blanket of support—equipping them with mindfulness tools, nourishing food, and emotional resilience before a mental health crisis ever hits.

Right now, Goin Native is at a thrilling and critical turning point. We have a proven, healthcare-backed blueprint and an ambitious 10-year vision to scale these preventative mental health sanctuaries across all of Orange County, and eventually into Los Angeles, San Diego, and beyond. However, to cultivate this next chapter of growth, we must move our operations out of our personal garages and driveways and into a centralized home.

By investing in our operational capacity today, you are not just funding a warehouse or a staffing structure—you are giving us the physical engine required to deliver nature’s quiet, transformative healing to thousands of children and families who need it most. I invite you to join us in planting the seeds for a healthier, more resilient tomorrow.

— Marianne Taylor, Founder & Executive Director

Statement from the Board Chair/President
Having served on the board for 11 years—including time as Board Chair and now as Board Secretary—I have had the unique privilege of watching Goin Native Therapeutic Gardens grow from a passionate grassroots vision into a foundational pillar of community health in Orange County.

As an Associate Superintendent with the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE), I look at nonprofits through a specific lens: scalability, institutional trust, and measurable community impact. Goin Native exceeds these standards at every level. Our Executive Director, Marianne Taylor, brings a rare blend of elite professional credentials as a specialized CTE Agricultural educator and Master Gardener, which has allowed us to build highly sophisticated, therapeutic programs that seamlessly bridge the gap between healthcare and education.

What began with a dedication to serving our local seniors and individuals with special needs has evolved into a vital, regional mental health asset. Our six years of successful virtual horticulture therapy inside the CHOC/Rady Children's Health Mental Health Inpatient Center proved that our model works under the strictest clinical conditions. Now, with direct funding from our healthcare partners, we are taking that success "upstream"—establishing living, preventative wellness garden spaces right inside local schools. These spaces are designed to foster emotional resilience and provide grounding environments for students before a mental health crisis can ever take root.

The board's top priority right now is infrastructure. Goin Native has completely outgrown its beginnings in residential garages and driveways. To support our ambitious 10-year roadmap to expand these school gardens across Orange County and into neighboring regions, we urgently need to secure a centralized warehouse hub. We are entirely committed to this next chapter of capacity building, and we invite visionary funders to join us in securing a permanent home for this life-changing work.

— Analee Kredel, Board Secretary & Former Board Chair (Associate Superintendent, Orange County Department of Education)