LIFTT Awarded CIF Grant for ADA Accessible All-Inclusive Community Garden

Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT) is proud to announce that it has been awarded a Community Investment Fund (CIF) mini-grant to expand and enhance its ADA Accessible All-Inclusive Community Garden. This funding will help ensure that people of all abilities—aging and disabled individuals alongside those without disabilities—can fully participate in the joys and benefits of gardening.

The CIF award enables LIFTT to purchase adaptive gardening tools, including long-handled and ergonomic hand tools, one-handed implements, adaptive gripping aids, kneelers, garden seats, raised beds, self-watering containers, and wheelchair-accessible features. These resources will allow individuals with mobility limitations, arthritis, low grip strength, or other challenges to actively engage in gardening, workshops, and community activities.

“This grant affirms what we’ve believed from the start—when you design spaces for inclusion, you create opportunities for connection, learning, and independence,” said Carlos A. Ramalho, Executive Director of LIFTT. “The Community Investment Fund is helping us remove the barriers that keep too many people from participating in something as fundamental and life-giving as tending a garden.”

Located at LIFTT’s headquarters in Billings, the garden offers an accessible and welcoming environment for at least 100 participants in its inaugural season, with half of them expected to be individuals with disabilities. Through seasonal planting, maintenance, harvesting events, and educational workshops on adaptive techniques, nutrition, and sustainability, the project will foster inclusion, wellness, and community connection.

For more information about LIFTT’s ADA Accessible All-Inclusive Community Garden or other programs, please visit www.liftt.org or call (406) 259-5181.

About the Community Investment Fund:

The Community Investment Fund (CIF) supports inclusive projects across Montana that enable people with disabilities to live, learn, work, and play in their communities alongside people without disabilities. CIF Grants are administered by the University of Montana Rural Institute for Inclusive Communities.

About Living Independently for Today & Tomorrow (LIFTT): LIFTT is a Montana 501(c)3 corporation organized as a Center for Independent Living (CIL). With team members based in Billings and Glendive, LIFTT provides aging and disabled members of the community with programs and services that help empower them to break down the physical, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers that prevent them from being fully independent participants in their lives and communities throughout 18 counties in southeastern and south-central Montana: Big Horn, Carbon, Carter, Custer, Dawson, Fallon, Garfield, Golden Valley, McCone, Musselshell, Powder River, Prairie, Richland, Rosebud, Stillwater, Treasure, Wibaux, and Yellowstone. For more information, please visit liftt.org or download our mobile app for your Apple or Android Device.

Our Vision: Empowering aging and disabled individuals to LIFTT themselves above the barriers of life.

Our Mission: Living Independently for Today and Tomorrow – LIFTT’s mission is to empower aging and disabled individuals to live independently through education, support, and opportunities.

You can donate to LIFTT by clicking here.