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About the Founder

Lanora grew up on a livestock and produce farm, where she learned to grow fresh herbs, fruits, and vegetables alongside her mother and grandfather. Lanora aims to share her generational knowledge with the community by returning to her roots: growing fresh produce for direct sales, and teaching community members and aspiring farmers how to cultivate herbs, fruits, and vegetables. Lanora will also be able to provide preservation training for the community, such as dehydrating grapes into raisins, preserving fruits in jellies and jams, and baking from scratch.

About Genesis 2:9 Holistic Herbal Wellness

Like hundreds of thousands of people around the world, Lanora was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. She was blessed with full remission of her cancer in 2017. It was from that moment she realized she wanted to help others access and utilize healthier alternatives made from plant-based and organic natural ingredients to enhance a person’s health and well-being. This is at the core of the founding of her business, Genesis 2:9 Holistic Herbal Wellness, which produces herbal teas, treats, and topicals. 

History

Through her years of experience in entrepreneurship, Lanora sought expert advice. Through Access Plus Capital for funding her start-up, Fresno Area Hispanic Foundation for the grand opening of her brick-and-mortar location, and rebranding once she closed the location. Through the Center for Community Transformation at Fresno Pacific University, Lanora relaunched the business to offer her products for purchase at private events. 

Wanting to expand beyond special pop-up events, she connected with the F3 Local team at UC ANR to help her navigate bringing her teas to local store shelves. This part of her journey introduced her to the world of shared kitchens–joining Clovis Culinary Center to begin producing more teas, attending shared kitchen informational tours with the F3 Local team. During a tour of El Pajaro CDC’s shared kitchen and in-development processing facility, Lanora saw the importance of a small-scale co-packing facility for local food businesses to be able to grow to the next stage of production.

Future Projects

This is where the Holistic Wellness Community Food Center for Southwest Fresno bloomed. Combining Lanora’s background in farming, business development, entrepreneurship, and case management, she aims to improve food access in the disadvantaged communities of Southwest Fresno while also strengthening limited-resource farm and food businesses to aid in increasing food security through a more just and efficient food system. 

The first step towards this goal would be to test this hypothesis by gauging community need and interest in the area intended to be served by the Food Center. In addition, gauging the needs of food and farm businesses when it comes to preparing and processing food. 

• For consumers, what fresh, SNAP-eligible produce they want, where easy-to-access locations are, and what prices are affordable.
• For farmers cataloging their current produce varieties and pricing strategies. 
• For food businesses, measuring the importance of local procurement for their products, and what challenges they experience in doing so.

Lanora will apply these funds towards the research and development of the Holistic Wellness Community Food Center for Southwest Fresno, aiming to apply for additional grants, and as a means for crowdfunding for the project.

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“The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground
—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”
Genesis 2:9