Desert Survivors, Inc.

Who We Are 

Desert Survivors was founded in 1981 by Dr. Joseph Patterson, a Tucson psychologist who worked with adults with disabilities living in institutions during the 1970’s. He recognized their need for meaningful activities and occupations to provide dignity and purpose in their lives. In the late 1970’s, Tucson residents became interested in native plants that were both attractive and low water use. Originally starting with just five employees with disabilities, seeds were collected from the desert and grown out and sold from our original Grant Road storefront. Desert Survivors is now a 501c3 which has served adult job seekers with various significant disabilities in Tucson for over 40 years. Our current location is leased from the city and has been since 1986. 

What We Do

We employ 45+ adults with I/DD in fully integrated work environments. These individuals help maintain our native plant nursery by weeding, transplanting, propagating, and providing customer service. They also travel off-site to various commercial landscaping partners and as well as Pima County’s Chuck Huckleberry Loop. Our crews help keep Tucson beautiful by picking up trash, watering planters, pruning, insta ling native plants, and maintaining beds for our landscaping customers. Every small group has a mentor to guide, teach, and encourage, with respect to each person’s unique abilities. And every participant receives at least minimum wage. Revenues from the nursery sales and landscaping contracts pay the wages of the supported employees, while income from our contract with the State of Arizona pays the salaries of our Direct Support Professionals. A diverse and skilled staff, who we refer to as Mentors, work alongside our supported employees with disabilities to prepare them for competitive integrated employment in the community. By being both a retail and production nursery, we can offer a wide variety of tasks to participants to help them learn what the next step of their employment journey could look like. Desert Survivors Inc. provides quality employment to adults with developmental disabilities, advocacy to families and individuals, desert friendly products at our native plant nursery and sustainable services to our community.

Being in a food desert ravaged by poverty, which is massively impacted by severe climate, we recognize our importance in the sustainability of our city. Desert Survivors creates opportunities for the public to challenge systemic ableism by simply shopping at our nursery or participating in a community event. We can simultaneously encourage ecological education, model a truly integrated space, and dispel disability myths just by opening our doors every day. We nurture both plants and people so we can all thrive. Desert Survivors serves the disability community in many ways, which includes providing opportunities for the greater Tucson area to engage in integrated events. We focus on preparing our job seekers for independent work while simultaneously combating all too common bias of people without disabilities. This project continues those goals by having the artist work with our members to design and create each bench. Together they highlight three aspects of our approach to services; combating ablism, broadening job seeker experience, and providing everyone involved with a livable wage. And during our many community events this story of collaboration and inclusion will be shared with the public, creating ripples of positive impact throughout Tucson