Putting Down Roots: How Warren Village Helped Noelle Cultivate Her Future

It’s Thursday, which means Noelle Trueheart arrives at Warren Village with her delivery van stuffed full of fresh organic produce—carrots, okra, greens; any and all fruits of the recent harvest. She is getting ready to distribute the food to the parents and kids there, who have come to appreciate her attention to detail.

After many visits, she has learned what produce residents like the most. Some mothers want okra for traditional African stews; one is a nutritionist perfecting recipes for her catering business; some are moms who juice, looking for specific ingredients. Noelle takes time to talk with each of them, and handpicks the fruits and vegetables and herbs herself that they like.

“These ladies deserve to be spoiled,” Noelle says with resolve. “They work so hard. Besides raising their babies, they’re working on degrees, some working several jobs. They’re crushing it, and they deserve to be spoiled.”

Noelle knows firsthand what they’ve gone through – she was a Warren Village resident herself. 

“I Just Started Weeping.”

When Noelle Trueheart arrived at Warren Village in 2017, she was eight weeks pregnant and had spent her entire pregnancy couch-hopping with friends. After escaping a domestically unsafe situation, she had no stable place to call home—until a housing coordinator brought her up to apartment 605.

“I’ll never forget that day,” she says of her arrival at the apartment. “It was a warm afternoon with sunlight coming in, and the unit was beautiful,” Noelle remembers. “I just started weeping. I never thought I would find such a lovely place for me and my daughter.”

A few weeks later, Noelle brought her newborn daughter Inez home to Warren Village—their first real home together. But what started as simply a safe place to raise her baby became something far more transformative: the launchpad for a thriving organic farm that now feeds hundreds of families across Colorado.

Finding Community in Unexpected Places

Noelle had worked on farms for many years and knew she wanted to start her own operation. But as a single parent, the dream seemed impossible—until Warren Village showed her what was possible, she says.

What she didn’t expect was the depth of community she would find at Warren Village. “I didn’t understand that I would be making lifelong friends,” she reflects. “I didn’t understand that other moms would be leaving clothes, bags full of baby clothes for me, and that I would be leaving bags full of baby clothes for other moms on their doorsteps.”

The connections ran deeper than material support. When Noelle had wrist surgery, other mothers literally washed her dishes. Moms shared advice on breastfeeding and baby food in the hallways. Kids formed into crews that ran up and down the corridors, laughing and playing together. Neighbors gathered to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July.

“I was trained as an anthropologist,” Noelle explains, “and that is how humans got here—by sharing knowledge with each other and literally having a whole village of moms to exchange information and knowledge and wisdom. That’s what we found, honestly, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Her daughter attended the Early Learning Center starting at six weeks old, giving Noelle the confidence to work knowing Inez was in capable hands. “I honestly can’t imagine a better place to leave my baby when I went back to work,” she says.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go

When asked if there was a moment when she knew she was ready to take that leap to owning her own farm, she related a vivid memory: 

On a rainy day in 2020, Noelle met with friends from the small farm community who were also ready to start their own operation. She later came home and read the Dr. Seuss book “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!” to her toddler daughter. Then she reached this passage in the book: 

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. 

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! 

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? 

How much can you lose? How much can you win? 

The references to taking risks struck a chord deep within her. She cried. 

“This is my moment,” she said. “This is when this needs to happen.”

Noelle and her partners spent that winter writing a business plan over Zoom, and Common Name Farm was born the following spring. The name itself reflects Noelle’s philosophy: every plant, she notes, has both a scientific name – often long, esoteric, and hard to pronounce – and its common name, which is rooted in history, stories, and folklore. “Common Name” reflects that her farm’s food would be “by the people, for the people.”

Warren Village’s support made the risk possible. “The fact that Warren Village works with you on your income was huge,” Noelle notes, “especially given that starting a new business, you’re pouring yourself into it, but not necessarily getting anything out of it for a while.” The farm went a year and a half before paying its founders—something that would have been impossible without stable, affordable housing and Warren Village’s support.

Now in its fifth year of production, Common Name Farm, based in Lafayette, Colorado, serves 80 CSA members. It sells at several local farmers markets, and partners exclusively with organizations focused on food access. “We want our food to get to folks who need it the most,” Noelle explains.

Planting Seeds and Cultivating Community

Noelle’s daughter Inez, now seven, has spent every summer of her life at the farm and tags along to farmers markets and food distributions. “When I knew she was with me, I was like, ‘It’s my duty to bring another kind human into the world,'” Noelle reflects. “She loves to feed people. She shows love to the plants, to the animals at the farm, to the soil, to the people.”

When asked what she would tell potential donors about Warren Village’s impact, Noelle’s answer is clear: “My family’s story is just one example of what’s possible through Warren Village. Since I started my business while living there, I’ve helped to feed hundreds of people over the years, and that is the gift that keeps on giving.”

She pauses, then puts her hand over her heart. “Some babies’ first solid foods come from my farm that I grew. That’s truly humbling. But think of all the other ways that Warren Village families can feed their communities. The possibilities are endless, and all these gifts keep on giving.”

Noelle’s journey shows that when you invest in one parent’s stability, you plant seeds that can feed hundreds.