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Brigham Young University student Jack Windsor tends to plants inside the Food & Care Coalition's hydroponic farm in Provo in an undated photo.

Courtesy Brigham Young University

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Produce is harvested inside the Food & Care Coalition's hydroponic farm in Provo on Tuesday March 4, 2025.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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The inside of the Food & Care Coalition's hydroponic farm in Provo, which was designed and built by Brigham Young University students, is pictured on Tuesday March 4, 2025.

Curtis Booker, Daily Herald

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People experiencing homelessness and residing at the Food & Care Coalition in Provo will have easier access to high-nutrition meals thanks to an innovative solution designed by Brigham Young University students.

Since the late 1980s, the organization has provided food, education and housing to the unsheltered community in Utah County.

The organization relies heavily on donations, said Food & Care Coalition Executive Director Brent Crane, and receives an abundance of fruits and vegetables during the end-of-summer harvest season, but those items tend to run low during the winter.

The coalition typically serves more than 400 meals daily without a food budget or consistent donations and requires “a lot of hands on deck,” Crane said. The undertaking inspired the coalition to explore different ways of providing nutritious produce to its residents year-round.

As it turns out, they didn’t have to look too far.

A group of BYU students along with their professor — Matt Arrington, an expert in indoor farming solutions — worked to design and build a hydroponics farm housed on the Food & Care Coalition’s campus in Provo.

“They were interested in doing a project and partnering and collaborating with some outside groups off campus,” Crane told the Daily Herald. “So, because of proximity, it was very convenient for them to come down.”

The Food & Care Coalition received a donation of supplies from Nu Skin to build the hydroponics farm and sought out help from Arrington and horticulture students to bring the vision to reality.

Hydroponics systems require specific parameters for lighting and a controlled temperature environment but can be retrofitted into various buildings to sprout plants any time of the year, Arrington said.

Instead of soil, leafy greens, tomatoes and herbs are grown in a water-based solution. Eventually, the farm will also produce strawberries and other small fruiting plants.

The Food & Care Coalition’s 20-foot by 40-foot indoor farm allows for efficient use of space, with racks holding multiple levels of plants. It’s estimated to grow about 400 pounds of produce every three months.

A handful of students spent a little over a year gathering materials, designing and building the farm, and seeding the initial crops.

Through deep commitment and hundreds of student volunteer hours, Arrington said the rewarding experience allowed students to put what they’ve learned to the test, all while serving the community.

“It is a really incredible opportunity for students to kind of practice what they preach, to be able to be a part of something that makes them feel connected in the community,” Arrington said. “It gives them pride and also kind of helps them to feel that charity towards their brothers and sisters in the community.”

Arrington said he’s been involved in similar horticulture projects in the past and believes hydroponic farming is one solution to the increasing problem of food access and bringing communities together.

“It results in this really fantastic transfer of skills that helps people to feel like they have control over their food system,” he told the Daily Herald.

The hydroponics greenhouse is composed of three independent systems. The ebb and flow system nurtures all the seeds until they sprout. The leafy greens are separated into a Nutrient Film Technique system where a pump circulates the nutrient solution through a channel that lightly bathes the roots. Tomatoes are separated into a trellis design that drips nutrients and water directly onto the roots, a university press release explained.

Since the systems require specific knowledge and skills to maintain them, students have been showing community and residential volunteers the process of planting, nurturing and harvesting. Ultimately, the farm will be run by the Food & Care Coalition.

“Designing this system and building it here has been amazing, but we don’t have the ability to get students here all the time to maintain the farm,” said BYU student Jack Windsor. “And we also don’t want to take away the opportunity to serve and to learn from the volunteers and residents here. So, we are developing instruction manuals and in-person training.”

Lights in the farm produce 16-hour days 365 days a year, which leads to a consistent harvest every 14 to 21 days.

Crane said though only two of the racks in the farm are operational, it has already undergone several harvests.

“We’ll be able to harvest three, four times a week once all three racks are going and pretty much keep our kitchen loaded with salad,” he said.

For Windsor, he expressed gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the project and the education provided by BYU.

“The experience and learning that I gained in this process will affect me for the rest of my life,” he said in the university release.”Not just the technical skills, but the interactions with people who live here at the Food and Care Coalition who are in the process of rebuilding their lives. It makes me understand what Christ really wants us to be doing at this time in the world.”