Located in the heart of a food desert, Rockaway Youth Task Force’s community garden is a thriving oasis amidst bodegas, fast food restaurants, and grocery stores shuttered since Hurricane Sandy devastated the area in 2012.
Small Axe Peppers partners with the International Rescue Committee to help newly settled refugees earn income through farming as they transition to their new life in America.
At Brook Park Youth Farm, the garden's primary caretakers are teenagers with criminal records who were sent to work in the garden through a court order as an alternative to incarceration.
La Finca del Sur is an urban farm in Mott Haven led by women of color, highlighting the agricultural heritage of its farmers who have roots in the American and global south.
Semillas de Justicia stands as a great example of community efforts to redevelop brownfields, and uplift green open spaces in Little Village and Chicago in general.
By demonstrating various ways to grow healthy foods, the Food Zoo is able to showcase how growing your own food can be an empowering tool to reducing food insecurity and hunger.
Al Renner helped supervise a group of young gang members on a garden project in Silver Lake, and knew first hand the benefits of putting forgotten people to work with forgotten land.
Currently over 30 families, many of them with Asian or Latin American roots, cultivate plots in the garden under the leadership of the volunteer Garden Manager, Carmen Macias. A diversity of languages, cultural techniques and growing practices from across the world converge at this 17,000 square foot site, owned by a generous private landowner who leases the land for a nominal fee.
YMEN serves about 150 families weekly by providing academic support and skill enhancement, entrepreneurial training, arts education, value-based enhancement classes as well as mentoring, tutoring, sports/recreation and a wide variety of field trip experiences