Chidi Chidozie is a University of Minnesota Extension Master Gardener Volunteer serving
Hennepin County. He currently leads the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives for
Hennepin County Master Gardeners and also is serving a three-year term as Board Member of
Master Gardeners State Advisory Board. He has been a master gardener for 10 years. The DEI
team at Hennepin County have developed programs that go to the underserved communities
encouraging people to garden. The team provides them with planting pots, soil/compost,
seeds/seedlings.
Chidi’s highlight of being a master gardener has been connecting with the Vegetable Working
Group at the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources
Sciences’ Crop Breeding Center to establish an African Garden. Within three years, the
Vegetable Working Group has created a community awareness of the project and has established
an African Garden with over 30 crops.
Chidi has always been around plants all his life. Growing up in Nigeria his father was a
headmaster and agriculturist with a passion for developing ‘School Yard Gardens/Farms’ and
making growing food part of the school’s curriculum. All food harvested from the garden/farm
goes back to the families of the students that are underprivileged and to the community. Chidi’s
father also had his personal garden that featured a one acre pineapple plantation, a poultry farm
of 100 plus chickens and goats. He grew crops like millet and maize that were used to feed the
goats and chickens. He never sold anything he grew or raised on his farm; it all went to the
missionaries and people in need.
Chidi moved to the United States in the mid seventies to further his education at the University
of Wisconsin Stevens Point where he graduated with a BS in Accounting. He worked for many
companies in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area as a Financial Systems Analyst both as an
employee and a consultant for almost forty years.
Chidi is married to his wife Laurel, for over 40 years and Laurel supports his gardening
daydreams and adventures. Chidi plants enough food to feed a village and gives away over 90%
of the produce to neighbors, friends and food shelves. In the Spring, Chidi starts over three
thousand seedlings that he donates to community gardens, nonprofit fund-raising plant sales and
to neighbors and friends. Chidi and Laurel have four grown Children and 4 grandchildren, two of
their children and one grandchild live in the metro area while the rest live outside Minnesota.