Community Update Spring 2019
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As we approach the summer solstice, we'd like to take a moment to look back on spring. Over the past few months, we've been visiting farms, attending conferences, and kicking off the
CRAFT season
, all while teaching about mushrooms, aquaponics, advocacy, propagation, soils, and carpentry. It's been a busy spring, to say the least!
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A group from our Citywide cohort visiting
Rock Steady Farm in Millerton, NY in April. Photo by D. Rooney
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First year Citywide students are flying through courses. Here, we recently built almost 20 new raised beds at the new Wortman site at East New York Farms during our Carpentry course. Students also built a new table and bench for BK Rot, guided by Sandy Nurse and Malachi Robinson.
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Second year Citywide students are balancing advanced courses along with an apprenticeship. We traveled to Farm One with our Soilless Practices teacher, Yemi Amu, to learn more about hydroponics. It was novel for many students to wear hair and shoe coverings as biosecurity protocol.
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Our Farm Intensive Certificate students are settling into their season-long apprenticeships at Kelly Street Garden, New Roots, Edible Schoolyard and Oko Farms. Their facilitator Mayfield Brooks led a soils workshop at East New York Farms earlier this month, the first of several intensives throughout the season.
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Announcing...Our New Fiscal Sponsor
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We're thrilled to announce that
Community Partners
will be our new fiscal sponsor, starting September 1, 2019! Community Partners has nurtured hundreds of community-based initiatives with invaluable guidance, training, and connections that help projects achieve greater impact. We appreciate the past support of Just Food, our current fiscal sponsor, and we look forward to a smooth transition and success for both organizations. We'll be sharing more information about this exciting news soon.
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Upcoming Course Registration
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Looking ahead, we have a few upcoming courses open for registration. Each course has limited availability and will close when the course is full. Our sliding scale is offered on a rate based upon course length. We ask that you consider circumstances beyond your income when selecting a lower tuition rate (ie. education, family wealth, partnership status and other circumstances that may offer you a safety net others do not have).
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3 weeks, June 26- July 13
Wednesdays 6-9pm
Saturdays, 10am-2pm
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5 weeks, July 24- August 16
Wednesdays 6-9pm
Saturdays, 10am-2pm
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A year ago in June, we lost a dear member of our community after a severe allergic reaction. Massiel's passing was shocking and tragic. We want to continue to celebrate her joyful, generous spirit that touched so many of us. We honor her as she joins our community of ancestors-- may the seeds Massiel planted in each of us continue to grow and thrive.
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What do
Minneapolis,
Baltimore and Portland have in common? Each have urban agriculture plans that guide decisions on land use, water access, infrastructure and other issues that impact growing and distributing food in the city. New York City may soon follow suit. On June 11, Farm School NYC testified before the New York City Council's Committee on Land Use on
proposed legislation to develop a comprehensive urban agriculture plan
. In our testimony, we offered the example of our own founders -- a collective of grassroots growers and activists living and working in black and brown communities who drew on their rich resources of thriving farms and abundant knowledge to build Farm School NYC. Pointing to our founders' success, we called for an autonomous task force of community-based farmers and gardeners to help develop this proposed plan.
To learn more about the call for strategic action and community inclusion in urban agriculture policy, join Farm School NYC at the next CUNY
Urban Food Policy Forum,
Charting the Future of Urban Agriculture in New York City
, on June 27 at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.
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As a current Citywide Certificate student and Family Nurse Practitioner, Kat Tanner organized her coworkers to build raised beds on the roof of their healthcare clinic in the
Morris Heights area of the Bronx. Kat partnered with our Preparing for Winter teachers, Ursula Chance and Kadeesha Williams from Bronx GreenUp for support, and thanked her fellow students,
"You all have been hearing me talk about this and helped me brainstorm / think critically about how to make this happen throughout almost all of our classes... Thanks to all of you, and let's continue to make all of the things we want happen!"
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Annual Food Heritage Festival
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Hattie Carthan Community Garden is hosting their 15th Annual Food Heritage Festival on Saturday, June 22, from 2pm - 9pm.
As Farmer Yon, Hattie Carthan President and our teacher and one of our founders, says: our food is our culture. Please come out and support this beautiful space and enjoy the dynamite cuisine. Visit
Heritage Festival
for more information.
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We want to take a moment to highlight a free opportunity that a number of our community members have chosen to pursue, including Woke Foods. The
Green Worker Coop Academy
is a free intensive training program designed to helps teams of aspiring entrepreneurs develop worker-owned green businesses, especially for those based in the Bronx. They're currently accepting applications for the Fall 2019 program!
We'll be back with more events and opportunities next time. Thank you for being part of our community, and we're excited for the summer ahead!
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