Actress and Once Upon a Farm co-founder Jennifer Garner is carrying her family’s Oklahoma farm into another generation, preserving the land where her mother grew up while keeping its stories close.
“He is the holder of the stories and runs the farm to this day,” Garner said of her Uncle Robert on the company’s website.
The farm in Locust Grove, Oklahoma has been part of the family since 1936, making this year its 90th anniversary in their hands. Garner purchased it in 2017, according to PEOPLE, and Robert continues to oversee its day-to-day work.
For Garner, that makes the farm more than a place to revisit. It is still a working connection to the childhood of her mother, Patricia, and to the food traditions that shaped the family long before the actress became a familiar face on screen.
PEOPLE recalled how Patricia’s family grew vegetables, raised livestock and relied on native pecan trees for income and food. The garden included English peas, new potatoes, green beans and tomatoes, while chickens, cows and pigs supplied much of the family’s meat.
The property passed between family members over the decades. Robert and his wife, Janet, took it over in 2008 and built a modern home there before Garner became its owner nine years later.
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That continuing family presence is part of what Garner values about the place. Her uncle is not just looking after crops; in her telling, he also keeps the family’s memories alive.
“One thing that I love about the farm is that my Uncle Robert still lives here,” she said.
The land also connects to her work with Once Upon a Farm, which makes food and snacks for children. The company identifies the Oklahoma property as an inspiration for some of its recipes, giving those family roots a place in a business built around feeding the next generation.
“Once I started working for Once Upon a Farm, I loved the idea of connecting kids to the farm early on,” Garner said.
Garner joined the company in 2017, but its beginnings predate her involvement. Its own history credits Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz with starting the business in 2015, before Curtis joined forces with Garner and former Annie’s chief executive John Foraker.
That distinction matters: the family farm helped inspire Garner’s part in the company’s story, but it was not the company’s starting point. Her role brings together a personal attachment to the land and a stated interest in children’s nutrition.
In September 2021, the company announced its A Million Meals initiative with Save the Children, combining financial support, product donations and volunteer opportunities for food programs serving children in need.
“My work with Save the Children over the past 15 years has deepened and informed my advocacy for early childhood nutrition, and in many ways, is what led me to co-founding Once Upon a Farm,” Garner said in that 2021 announcement.
In its current account of that partnership, the company says the effort has provided more than 1.2 million meals. For Garner, the farm’s next chapter connects the family stories Robert preserves with her work to help feed children beyond its gates.
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