Farm Gardens and Green Infrastructure
A few weeks ago, the New York City Green City Force (an affiliate of the Americorps) invited young adults to apply for its year-long program to learn about green infrastructure, sustainability and the cultivation and distribution of fresh produce. The goal of the GCF is to train community leaders who can help educate children, youth and adults about sustainable agriculture.
The City has been at this a long time – its first program, the brainchild of reformer Fannie Parsons, established farm gardens in places all over Manhattan. The largest of these was in Thomas Jefferson Park on the Upper East Side, in what was then Little Italy. From 1911 until World War II, more than 1,000 children a year (500 girls, 500 boys) grew corn, beets, beans, peas, turnips and lettuce on these 4’x8’ plots.
The farm gardens were intended to provide respite for child laborers, and to help develop the civic virtues of hard work, honesty and cooperation, seen as especially important since these were largely immigrant children.
(from https://www.iberlibro.com/Public-School-Urban-Gardening-Collection-Original/30836783214/bd) https://www.farmschoolnyc.org/
In 2001, community farms reemerged as a place where kids could learn about farming and agriculture when the Red Hook Community Farm introduced gardening to neighborhood kids.
Red Hook Initiative https://rhicenter.org/
More than twenty years later, there are a variety of other programs, including City Growers, an immense rooftop garden in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and the Green City Corps, an AmeriCorps program for young adults living in a NYC Housing Authority development.
City Growers https://citygrowers.org
Green City Force https://greencityforce.org
