It’s the season of giving!
As a Certified B Corp, we like to treat every day like it’s Giving Tuesday. Over the years, we’ve put down roots in communities across the U.S. Whether it’s donating produce to regional food banks, volunteering with urban gardens, or donating seedlings to our local schools and community gardens, we’re committed to being good neighbors. We’re grateful to our community partners who advocate for a healthier planet by improving access to nutritious food and educational opportunities. We want to recognize a few of them here – read on for a few highlights from 2023.
City Harvest
We’ve been proud to donate our extra produce to City Harvest, New York City’s first and largest food rescue organization, for many years and 2023 was no different. We worked with the organization to donate thousands of pounds of fresh Gotham Greens lettuce to the greater NYC community. Pictured here is our latest delivery, which went straight to the Salvation Army Jamaica Community Center. This year, City Harvest will rescue and deliver 77 million pounds of food—more than half of which will be fresh produce—for their neighbors experiencing food insecurity. Learn more and support City Harvest here: https://www.cityharvest.org/
Denver Urban Gardens
Denver Urban Gardens is one of the largest independent networks of food-producing gardens in the country. The organization currently serves more than 200 community gardens, including more than 70 school-based community gardens, and 20 food forests across six Denver metro counties. This fall, employees from our Colorado greenhouse gathered at Firefly Autism. Additionally, we continue to donate our seedlings for DUG to funnel into community gardens. Learn more at www.dug.org.
Green Bronx Machine
We’re proud to be longtime partners with Green Bronx Machine, a NYC-based organization focused on furthering food access and health education for students. Our organizations both share a core belief: that healthy students help drive healthy schools, and that healthy schools are at the heart of healthy communities. This August, Green Bronx Machine’s founder Stephen Ritz traveled to Colorado to host a back-to-school healthy food fair at Green Valley Elementary School (Denver Public Schools) with Kroger and Danone. Our local team members joined the event to volunteer, hand out coupons and lettuce seedlings, and connect with our Colorado community.
Rainbow City Gardens
This wonderful Chicago-based organization exists to provide guidance on the creation and maintenance of edible garden spaces. Their mission is promote food sovereignty and see urban spaces full of edible gardens so that Chicago communities can become brighter, more colorful, and biodiverse! Our Chicago greenhouses are proud to be an ongoing seedling donation partner to Rainbow City Gardens, with recent donations supporting Chicago Youth Centers and Belmont Village Senior Living. You can learn more about their important work at www.rainbowcitygardnens.com.
Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council
The Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council (WRWC) aims to revitalize the Woonasquatucket River, its Greenway and its communities in Rhode Island. We recently celebrated the completion of a multi-use path behind our greenhouse in Providence — a longtime project with the WRWC and city of Providence. The new urban pathway seamlessly connects the Olneyville neighborhood (the site of our greenhouse) with the rest of the city.
