In early June, the Food Ed Coalition called on the Mayor and City Council to fully fund the Food Ed Hub, SYEP, and GrowNYC School Gardens (formerly Grow to Learn) in the FY21 Budget. These nonprofit organizations provide necessary resources to sustain gardens where children and adolescents develop real-life skills, connect with the natural world, and have fun.

GrowNYC, the nonprofit that oversees school gardens,  provides free materials and educational programming to inspire healthy eating, build community, and keep gardens growing. GrowNYC School Gardens plays an especially important role in underserved communities where PTAs are less likely to be able to raise the funds necessary to support their school’s garden. GrowNYC School Gardens’ Director and Food Ed Coalition member Kristin Fields says, “And yet the possibilities for gardens to flatten the curve in inequality are endless.” School gardens provide spaces to learn, play, and support mental health. 

Despite the Food Ed Coalition’s urgent call to prioritize prevention services and address health disparities in our City’s communities of color, the City cut their contract with NYC School Gardens, effectively putting all 824 school gardens at risk. Now, at a time when greenspace, gardening, and the need for education surrounding food, nutrition, and health are more apparent than ever, these cuts make no sense.   

 “Cutting garden programs erases years of work by dedicated volunteers … making it disproportionately harder for under-resourced schools to receive the free materials they rely on to keep gardens growing, furthering the gap in education inequality. It is vital that our elected leaders, foundations, and individuals invest in these outdoor learning labs and nutrition education programs now more than ever. The health and wellbeing of our city’s children depends on it,” writes Kristin.

For more on the future of GrowNYC School Gardens, check out Kristin’s blog post on GrowNYC’s Website, School is closed, but gardens are growing.

For GrowNYC and other food ed organizations' online programing, visit our E-Learning Hub.