I reside here in beautiful Brooklyn NYC.
I’m originally a New Yorker from the lower side Manhattan, if anyone is familiar with NYC accents, it’s obvious.
Grew up in NYC from parents who grew up on farms, always loved visiting my grandparents seeing them grow what they eat and always inspiring to me!
I have come full circle by being the director of Farm School NYC
I have to say, I grew up on the lower east side on the 18th floor an apartment
My mother grew up on a mid size family farm in Alabama, when she moved here she brought her love and passion for growing things with her and she just recreated that in a little postage size terrace.
had to be flowers
house plants and all different flowers
were some of her favorites I remember from when I was a kid!
Awwww that’s like the sweetest story. I didn’t really get to meet a lot of people from NYC proper, even tho my cousins lived on the Upper East Side, but we only saw them at Christmas and it’s fun to imagine, a little children’s book. Have you seen Sarah Stewart’s book The Gardener?
folks who are interested in learning how to grow sustainably
resources
health wellness
access to healthy food
cultivate an awareness of how to grow food and collecting or make an impact on those health and wealth disparities
bringing things together culturally
through food
cohort moving through our certificate program
certificate in Urban Agriculture
20 courses in succession
20-30 people moving through that program at any given year
containers grounding in the methodology
come in
start taking courses
anyone over the age of 18
Cohort
diversity
feed each other
that’s the beauty
we were originally created as a collective of farms
things we have here at our fingertips and resources that we have
because we were developed as a collective of groups, we didn’t want to create something else that would compete with that for resources to fund these projects
or an alternate income that is required to make it happen
didn’t want to create another resource to be maintained by this community
access and feed and invest in what already existed
founder
seed
so we don’t have our farm
every farm is our farm in some sense
where we go to different places throughout the five boroughs!
That is so cool! Other people are gonna learn so much more by seeing all these different systems and who would have thought there are so many? Is there a map? Can the public go see them?
Oh yeah sure!
How fun it would be to go tour 600 community gardens or even 25 of them!
there are some great non profits
community gardens are part of my childhood
postage stamp that my mother turned into this beautiful sky garden
grew up on the lower east side of nyc
reclaimed vacant lots from the 60s and 70s
and create wonderful oaises like all over that neighborhood
20×20 footprint of a brownstone building in NYC where that house was torn down or vacated in someway and
communities would come together and reclaim that space and create a lush collective for that community
I think a huge part of what I saw growing up.
Me too! One of my first college experiences out of high school was a Pratt Institute in NYC and I was just there this summer they have a huge rose garden. Some of my fondest memories were of being at the quad at Pratt, it was
I live not far from there, I ride my bike past there quite often.
I was surprised we went to the Brooklyn Grange and walked right past there a couple of blocks away.
It’s a level of commitment that is not for everyone.
We have other points of entry into our courses
Beginning in the springtime individual courses
not enrolled into the program you can take one course there
range in terms of how long they are
They are stand alones
dont need prerequisite of another course
propogation
working with seeds/transplants
working with seeds for scale
how all of the seedlings sold and come into being
hands-on course with a lecture component
meant for full-time working adults
classtimes so people are able to take them
folks can visit our website
to get more information on the course offerings
smaller workshops
some are free with partnerships
folks can find a way
Like minded of finding people who are growing and interested in social justice
stay in our community
how to plan
people on this planet
Do you have any major steps or tips you would share with listeners if they wanted to start a community center in their place or a sustainable tip to do in their home.
first thing I say is
work to be isolated in some sense of all the things going on already see if there are already projects that need support
often tempting to have an idea that we think is wonderful and want to run with that
something already existing that is also a wonderful idea, it might not be yours totally but if there is something ingrained a community already and there is already support and interest help those projects that are already needing help as opposed to competing for resources
I suggest walk the neighborhood and find out what
abandon your own idea but get involved in an interaction
Boy we could sure use you in Congress right now! You’re very eloquent and have a lot of background knowledge and the kind of person who can unite multiple groups of people while putting our planet first!
That’s a big part of our mission here at
everywhere
work at diversity
inclusion
work
ongoing challenges that are inherent
prestige bar
practice
applicable no mater what
definitely
central to that
very visceral
hands on ways
learning from farmers
food system that
whole ways that we interact with our system
that’s what were trying to do
folks more educator
I was talking about the diversity of farm school some ways the deeper meaning of that
wrap my thought about how we got on there…
One thing that what makes farm school different as far as education as farmers
is a more just food system
farmers are a foundation of that
feeling that there is a real connection to land is a huge part of grounding ourselves in our what relationships were’ looking for food systems
I