Urban farmers across North America are giving our concrete jungles a green makeover. These green-thumbed visionaries take vacant lots and rooftops and transform them into solutions for many of the struggles facing urban populations, with food insecurity topping that list—and companies like Nature’s Path are helping them make their visions a reality. The organic food company’s Gardens for Good grant contest will award three $15,000 grants to nonprofit organic garden projects that bring healthy, organic food to those who need it most.
Thousands of city dwellers have little or no access to affordable, nutritious food, thanks to urban food deserts, lack of access to transportation and poor food literacy. Urban farmers are on a mission to change all that with acres of unused urban land converted to productive green spaces. And for these growers and the people they serve, growing food is all about changing our food system to truly benefit communities.
Urban Farmers For Food Justice
“Building a garden in a city is an opportunity to challenge the status quo, to open peoples’ minds to a real alternative to our current system,” says Jesse Schafer, garden manager at GroW Gardens. Based in Washington, DC, GroW won a Gardens for Good grant from Nature’s Path in 2011 and has been busy giving the White House garden a run for its money ever since. More than just a community garden, GroW works towards a more just food system by getting people excited about growing food—mobilizing the community to get their hands dirty, then sharing the resulting bounty with a non-profit that feeds 200-300 homeless people daily.
Help Good Things Grow In Your Community
Do you have a vision for an organic garden project? A desire to improve access to healthy food in your community? And a plan to put your idea into practice? Now entering its 6th year, Nature’s Path’s Gardens for Good grant contest is connecting urban farming projects dedicated to feeding their communities with the funds to help make it happen.
If you’re a nonprofit with an established garden project or a piece of land and a great idea, submit your application to Nature’s Path before June 22 and you could win one of three $15,000 Gardens for Good grants to help you grow your garden, as well as technical design and production mentorship from Rodale’s Organic Life magazine. Once your application is submitted, get your community excited about the voting phase of the contest, where the six projects with the most votes advance to the next round, where three winners will be awarded the $15,000 grants.
Make Your Green Dream Come True
Jesse at GroW Gardens has some words of wisdom for aspiring urban farmers and food justice advocates: “People need to simply go out there and try it. It’s all about the will and the attempt. We believed so strongly that we just willed the garden into existence: If you will it, it is no dream.”
Together, we can build a better food system. Change starts with you, so submit your application today, or share this Gardens for Good grant opportunity with your green-thumbed community!