GrowNYC 2014 Annual Report
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GROWNYC ANNUAL REPORT 2014
description
www.grownyc.org
Transcript of GrowNYC 2014 Annual Report
GROWNYCANNUAL REPORT
2014
GROWNYC AT-A-GLANCETogether we make a better city. One that is clean, green and sustainable.
W W W. G R O W N Y C . O R G
GREENMARKET
Our network of farmers markets, Youthmarkets, Fresh Food Box
and Greenmarket Co., ensures that all New Yorkers have access to the
freshest, healthiest food.
RECYCLE
We blanket the five boroughs with free events like Stop ‘N’ Swap®
and resources like textile and foodscrap collection to make waste reduction easy for everyone.
GARDEN
We build and support community and school gardens through
tool loans, volunteer days, technical assistance, training, school garden
grants and more.
TEACH
We foster future environmental stewards by providing more than
25,000 children each year with education programs that leave lasting impressions. For many children, these are their first
meaningful interactions with the natural environment.
30 Get Involved
32 A Letter from the Chairman
33 A Story from the Executive Director
34 Funders & In-Kind Donors
38 Members & Staff
40 GrowNYC Finances
2Greenmarket
10Garden
16Teach
26Recycle
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GROWNYC’S GREENMARKETS
promote regional agriculture by offering farmers a marketplace to sell their products and provide all New Yorkers access to the freshest, healthiest food, as well
as transforming urban spaces into neighborhood centers of sustainability. Since 1976, Greenmarket has
grown from a handful of farmers to over 240 producers, and the number of customers they serve
continues to grow. Beyond the farmers markets, GrowNYC has a number of initiatives that center on
improving the health and nutrition of all New Yorkers. For 30 years, we have been responding to the needs
of diverse communities and ramping up our efforts to ensure that affordable, healthy, fresh food gets into the
hands that need it most across the city.
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
For Your Table We released The New Greenmarket Cookbook in May, featuring 100 recipes from the country’s best chefs and stories of 20 Greenmarket farm-ers whose busi-
nesses have flourished in the markets.
Food for AllShoppers increased SNAP / EBT redemption at our Greenmarkets to $930,000 in 2013 and GrowNYC dis-tributed $260,000 in Health Bucks in partnership with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, ensur-ing all New Yorkers have access to the healthiest, freshest produce.
Access SolutionsA major challenge cited by New York-ers to eating healthy is convenience—et voilà, GrowNYC presents the Fresh
Food Box, among the most affordable food available in the city. With 17 pick up sites in 2014 providing 170,000 pounds of locally grown produce to in need residents, we are closing the gap on have and have not.
Food RescueHunger continues to be a problem for many city dwellers and Greenmarket farmers along with partner organiza-tions are doing much to change that. Nearly a million pounds of food from our producers was donated to food pantries, soup kitchens and other food distribution centers over the past year.
FARMrootsFarms grow more than food—they preserve habitat, open space and a way of life that we can’t lose. We helped train beginning and established farmers through workshops on customer service, season extension, leasing land, market-ing, planning for profit and more.
Youthmarkets Imagine a farm stand next to a taxi stand — GrowNYC has made it so. In 2014, we trained and employed over 60 youth to operate mini farm markets in in-need neighborhoods. Communities got the best of the season and the program brought more than $200,000 in additional income to regional farmers.
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GREENMARKETSNAP and Food Access | Fresh Pantry | Fresh Food Box
Grains | Wholesale Greenmarket | FARMroots
Greenmarket Co. | Youthmarket | Greenmarket School Tours
4 51 Greenmarkets now accept EBT cards. 1 Million lbs of food donated by Greenmarket producers went to local organizations offering food support. The Fresh Food Box
SNAP AND FOOD ACCESS
Across the five bor-oughs, New Yorkers are looking to feed their families the freshest, healthi-est foods available. Thanks to fund-ing from the New
York City Council, more families than ever can purchase farm-fresh produce using their
FRESH PANTRY
In a city with as much wealth as New York, many of its residents still struggle with putting food on the table. That’s why Greenmarket helps connect regional
farmers with partner organizations like the Food Bank for New York City, City Harvest and New York City Coalition Against Hunger so unsold fruits, vegetables and baked goods at the end of a market day go to help feed New Yorkers in need. In 2013, farmers from 35 Greenmarkets donated nearly one mil-lion pounds of regionally grown produce and baked goods to local food pantries, homeless facilities, soup kitchens, and community cen-ters in all five boroughs.
SNAP dollars. 51 Greenmarkets accept Elec-tronic Benefit Transfer cards (debit cards for food stamps) and in 2013, these sales exceed-ed $930,000. Many who qualify for SNAP still struggle to afford sufficient food, which is why the NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Health Bucks program is so crucial. For every $5 a cus-tomer spends on their EBT card during the height of the season, they receive an extra $2 coupon for fresh fruits and vegetables. Not only is this great for families, it’s great for family farmers, who rely on Greenmarket to keep their farms viable.
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FRESH FOOD BOX
As more and more busy New Yorkers take an interest in where their food is grown, demand has risen for alternative ways to purchase fresh produce, es-
pecially in areas lacking traditional grocery stores. GrowNYC’s Fresh Food Box is a food access initiative that allows consumers in un-derserved communities the ability to purchase affordable, locally-grown produce by the week and without long term financial or time commitment. Operating now year-round, GrowNYC runs Fresh Food Box distribution sites in collaboration with community partner organizations and provides a convenient, weekly pick-up point for pre-packed shares of local fruits and vegetables from Greenmarket Co.’s network of family farms.
Fresh Food Box participants use the lever-age of group purchasing power to access high-quality produce at below-retail prices while still paying the farmers a fair price. The fresh produce offered is accompanied always by healthy recipes for that week’s items, and made even more affordable by Fresh Food Box’s ability to accept EBT/SNAP benefits. In the 2014 season, Fresh Food Box distributed more than 170,000 pounds of local food via 17 sites in underserved communities throughout New York City and put more money directly into the hands of wholesale family farms in our region.
WHOLESALE GREENMARKET
New York City’s long-running Whole-sale Greenmarket made its new home this year in an ex-pansive lot adjacent to the fish and meat markets in Hunts
Point, Bronx, on a main artery in the City’s wholesale food mecca. From 2 am–8 am Tues-days through Saturdays, nine wholesale fam-ily farmers from Upstate New York and New Jersey sell their produce and plants directly to grocers, bodega owners, restaurateurs, proces-sors, landscapers, and other small business owners. By giving wholesale shoppers an op-portunity to purchase fresh, local produce and vegetables directly from the farmer, Wholesale Greenmarket is putting more money directly into the pockets of regional family farms and offering New York City businesses increased opportunity to provide fresh, healthy and lo-cal produce to their customers.
program distributed 170,000 lbs of fresh produce. 17 Fresh Food Box sites operate food distribution programs in underserved communities. 2 1 aspiring farmers graduated from
GRAINS
GrowNYC continued to increase knowledge and availability of Northeast grown grains, educat-ing consumers, bakers, chefs and restaurateurs on the grow-ing trend towards cooking with regionally grown grain. We
hosted a local grain Olympics of sorts where esteemed bakers tested the performance of seven different flours milled from local grains and catalogued everything from crumb color and texture to flavor. This evaluation is a key piece of the “Value-Added Grains Project,” a long-term nationwide effort to equip farmers with the information needed to get into the grains business.
GrowNYC invited some of the city’s fore-most chefs, bakers and buyers to learn about working with local heritage grains available for bulk purchase through Greenmarket Co. Locally grown wheat berries are being served at Runner & Stone Restaurant and Bakery and the Lenox Hill Senior Center; Gramercy Tavern recently added pasta made with local emmer to its menu; and regional farmers are able to increase revenue streams.
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FARMROOTS
Tweefontein Herb Farm in New Paltz, NY sells fresh herbs, pestos, handmade soaps, lotions, salves and serums, and although they had developed loyal
customer groups on Wednesdays and Satur-days at the Union Square Greenmarket, they were looking for ways to increase their busi-ness and create brand recognition. In stepped FARMroots, GrowNYC’s Technical Assistance Program, with a brand new marketing pro-gram designed to help increase farmer sales and visibility at their markets. Tweefontein was one of ten Greenmarket farmers of vary-ing levels of experience chosen to participate in the first iteration of the program. These farms sat down to examine and evaluate their current branding and marketing practices and, with help from FARMroots, identified ways in which they could apply known retail strate-gies and consumer trends to increase brand recognition and ultimately, sales. FARMroots helped Tweefontein design new labels and promotional materials to better reflect their business and growing practices. They also worked to enhance the farm’s online presence including an improved e-store where they hope to draw in additional revenue. As part of this new marketing project, FARMroots
has also been able to collect important market data that will be used to enhance the under-standing of direct customer behavior and improve their capability to assist more farmers in the program.
This season, 21 aspiring farmers, hailing from eight different countries, graduated from the Farm Beginnings business training course and of those graduates, four have gone on to participate in year-long mentorship programs. FARMroots has aided Greenmarket farmers in the acquisition of 20 acres of new land and three new market sites. Furthermore, through
online crowd-source funding platforms like Kickstarter and KivaZip, FARMroots has helped farmers raise $20,000 in capital funding for additional farm equipment and improvements that will help them to increase both yields and profits. With the average farmer age now at 58 years old, FARMroots is out there doing criti-cal work to open the door for future farmers and helping to ensure our region’s farmland is in production for generations to come while New Yorkers continue to have access to fresh, healthy, local produce.
“I worked for 15 years, 6 days a week, at a local pizzeria. Then I
found FARMroots. Without them, I
wouldn’t be a farmer today.”
Agustin Juarez
Staten Island Family Farm
FARMroots Farm Beginnings business training course. 10 Greenmarket producers participated in GrowNYC’s inaugural Technical Assistance Program. FARMroots has
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GREENMARKET CO.
Retail farmers markets keep small farms in business and ensure that New Yorkers can cook with the fresh-est and best tasting products purchased
directly from the farmer. And yet 99% of food in New York City passes through wholesale channels, not farmers markets. Greenmarket Co., GrowNYC’s burgeoning food hub, helps midsize regional farmers who want to sell wholesale get a piece of
helped farmers raise $20,000 in capital funding. Greenmarket Co. distributed 1,200,000 lbs of regionally-grown products. Youthmarkets sold over $200,000 in produce, over
HOW GREENMARKET CO. WORKS
ProducersFood Pantries and
Food Rescue Organizations
Happy healthyeaters
this pie. In 2014, Greenmarket Co. purchased more than $850,000 in farm products and distributed more than 1,200,000 pounds of regionally grown fruits, vegetables and grains to wholesale buyers throughout New York City this season. In just three seasons, the list of clients making weekly and monthly pur-chases has soared to more than 200 and in-cludes restaurants, specialty retailers, schools, caterers, senior centers, bodegas, bakeries, community farm stands, food pantries, soup kitchens, and our own food access programs, Youthmarket and the Fresh Food Box. Eight new farms were added to the program this year, which allowed customers access to brand new products including organic pro-duce, eggs, and local grains.
“The kitchen was using 90% frozen vegetables and canned fruit. Now
I order 600 bushels of apples a year, lots of winter squash, onions,
potatoes, turnips, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes from Greenmarket Co.
and slowly we’ve been able to flip that number and use 90% fresh fruits and vegetables. I have a commitment
to supporting Greenmarket Co. and GrowNYC and our diners have
tasted the difference in eating fresh, local produce.”
Lynn LoflinExecutive Chef,
Lenox Hill Senior Center
Youthmarkets
Fresh Food Box
Institutional Buyers
Restaurants & Grocers
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YOUTHMARKET
Where can New Yorkers purchase af-fordable, farm-fresh produce and learn from neighborhood youth about nutri-tion and agricul-ture? GrowNYC’s
Youthmarkets continued to provide healthy, affordable food in 14 neighborhoods throughout the city, and youth workers
received training on how to operate a small business and be an ambassador for eating fresh, healthy, local food. This season, more than 60 young people from communities throughout the city with little access to fresh produce learned to operate farm stands in their own neighborhoods. This knowledge empowers these youth to provide their fami-lies, friends, and neighbors with a source of high-quality fresh produce from local farms. They also earn a fair wage for their work, and regional farmers access an otherwise unavailable revenue stream. Many staffers return the following season to help man-age the stands and usher in the next crop of trainees.
Sales at Youthmarkets surpassed $200,000 this season, and more than half of purchases were made with SNAP, Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, Health Bucks, Fresh Con-nect, and other nutrition assistance programs, demonstrating high demand for fresh produce in these areas. Cooking demonstrations, nutri-tion education activities, and complementary programming with more than 30 community partner organizations made Youthmarkets across the city a neighborhood destination each market day. In all, more than 200,000 pounds of produce was distributed to under-served neighborhoods via Youthmarkets—all sourced from local farms via Greenmarket Co.
half of which was purchased through nutrition assistance programs. 60 young people employed by Youthmarkets learned to operate farm stands in their own neighborhoods.
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GrowNYC offers a number of food access initiatives in areas of the city facing high incidence of diet-related diseases compounded by lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Here’s how we are helping increase access and improve health in one neighborhood:
area of detail
new york city
SOUTH BRONX MARKETS
1. Greenmarket Co. WarehouseGrowNYC’s local food hub and wholesale distribution project.
2. Wholesale GreenmarketA longtime hub for farmers who sell directly to buyers at wholesale volumes and prices.
3. Lincoln Hospital GreenmarketThis twice-weekly seasonal market hosts pro-gramming focused on public health and nutrition.
4. Bronx Borough Hall GreenmarketLike nearly all Greenmarkets this seasonal market accepts SNAP and a variety of nutrition benefits.
5. Learn It Grow It Eat It YouthmarketTeen-run seasonal farmstand featuring afford-able produce and nutrition education.
FRESH FOOD BOX SITES
Fresh Food Box, GrowNYC’s group buying program, allows community members to purchase fresh, seasonal produce at below-retail prices.
6. BronxWorksIn partnership with BronxWorks, residents pick up an affordable mix of produce each week.
7. Claremont Community CenterAs part of a community health coalition, this Fresh Food Box builds on community-based ef-forts to improve health outcomes in the Clare-mont Houses public housing development.
8. Via VerdeThe Fresh Food Box distribution enhances the rooftop garden that GrowNYC built at this site.
GREENMARKET CO FOOD ACCESS CUSTOMERS
9. Children’s Aid Society/Fannie Lou Hamer HSGreenmarket Co. delivers affordable produce to this high school for their youth-run farm stand.
10. Arturo Toscanini Junior HS 145 (10a) and JHS 211 and Gethsemane Baptist Church (10b)10a participates in New York City’s Garden to Café program and receives deliveries from Greenmarket Co. to support their “Harvest Day” celebration, where food from regional farms is used to supplement school garden produce prepared and enjoyed by teachers and students.10b) The United Way provided funding for Green-market Co. to make regular deliveries of fresh produce—often a rarity—to this food pantry.
FRESH FOOD FOR NEW YORKERS
Spotlight on the South Bronx
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GROWNYC HAS BUILT OR REJUVENATED
over 70 community gardens across New York City and spurred the growth of over 400 school gardens. We work with schools, public housing associations, and community groups to transform vacant
land into vibrant civic spaces for growing food, getting exercise and fresh air, learning,
understanding nature and much more.
Governors IslandWe broke ground on Governors Island Teaching Garden so that 2,000 young people plus thousands of weekend visi-tors can participate in hands-on experien-tial learning on a real urban farm.
Resiliency GuideUtilizing the les-sons learned from rebuilding ten gardens damaged during Superstorm Sandy, we created a NYC community garden guide, avail-able in print and as
a download from our website. The guide makes recommendations on how to pre-pare for future storms as well as what to do when a garden is damaged by weather or other disaster.
More gardensGood for the body, good for the soul. Whether as an opportunity for physi-cal activity, a place to grow food or the perfect spot to read and recreate, New Yorkers need green space. GrowNYC did our part by adding 40,000 square feet and 225 garden beds to the land-scape over the past year.
More plants At our Spring Plant Sale, more than 500 community groups purchased flats of flowers, herbs and vegetables (all grown by local farmers) at wholesale prices to get community greening projects going.
More peopleVolunteers put in 7,500 hours at 25 dif-ferent gardens across the city. We are able to leverage so much additional sup-port to the hundreds of community gar-dens we serve each year thanks to our generous corporate citizen work force.
The Next GenerationDigging in the dirt grows minds and inspires each child to care for the earth. GrowNYC’s school gardens program continues to make strides in its vision for a garden in every NYC public school with mini grants, education and fierce determination.
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
ResiLieNt NyC CommuNity gARdeN guide
Practical tips to make your garden more resilient.
Step-by-step guidelines to minimize damage to your garden before and after a storm.
a project of GrowNYC, www.GrowNYC.org
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GARDEN7 Brand New Gardens | Our Volunteers
Annual Plant Sale | Green Infrastructure | Grow Truck | School Field Trips
Mini-grants, Training and Materials for School Gardeners
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manhattan
brooklyn
the bronx
queens
staten island
West Brighton Community Garden
Morning Glory Community Garden
Four East New York Gardens
Chestnut Street Community Garden
Ashford Teaching Garden
Ashford Variety Garden
Glenmore Grown
Governors Island Teaching Garden Opens!For two years we have offered field trips at the Randall’s Island Urban Farm to thousands of children, providing food education and hands-on outdoor experiences. To meet this growing de-mand, GrowNYC was thrilled to break ground on a new urban farm space on Governors Island in April. The 8,000 square foot teaching garden features 30 raised beds, a fruit tree orchard, a rain garden, and a shipping container that has been rebuilt into a kitchen with a green roof. When students visit either farm, they learn about where their food comes from, how to grow it, and how to prepare a healthy snack. Topics of nutrition, botany, and food systems are woven throughout the day as students par-ticipate in activities such as planting, harvesting, cooking, or using the bicycle-powered blender to make a healthy beverage. In addition to weekday public school and summer camp pro-gramming, the teaching garden is open on the weekends from May–September allowing even more students, and their families, to participate in gardening activities and sample produce from the farm.
Governors Island Teaching Garden
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GrowNYC has been working alongside the Mayor’s Office to strategically place gardens in or around District Public Health Office zones. This year we broke ground on two new “Gardens for Healthy Communities”.
From 2009 to 2011, the Morning Glory Community Garden was a successful com-munity garden at 149th Street and South-ern Boulevard in the South Bronx that was forced to relocate due to development. The Mayor’s Office and GrowNYC helped the community relocate the garden to Hoe Av-enue in Crotona Park East. This new beauti-ful garden provides invaluable green space to this community and features 18 raised beds, picnic tables, a shed, compost bins, and bor-der plantings.
We also did extensive work at the West Brighton Community Garden, installing 25 raised beds for families to grow food, a shade structure, a rainwater harvesting system, pic-
nic tables, and a shed. The garden is largely cared for by members of the nearby Staten Island Deliverance Temple who donate all their produce to the Staten Island Health Ac-tion Food Pantry.
Four New East New York GardensGrowNYC partnered with Cypress Hills Lo-cal Development Corporation (CHLDC) once again (in 2012 we worked together to build a garden called El Jardin Del Pueblo) to build four new community gardens in East New York. Capitalizing on CHLDC’s local organiz-ing presence, GrowNYC built Chestnut Street Community Garden, Ashford Teaching Gar-den, Ashford Variety Garden, and Glenmore Grown, totaling over 14,000 square feet of new green space in the neighborhood. These four sites, which were all vacant lots, can now engage hundreds of East New York residents with new spaces for growing and gathering.
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Site Rehab in East New YorkPS 4K Paradise Garden, originally built by GrowNYC in 1989, is a large 13,000 square foot garden that has seen consistent use by the community and the namesake special needs PS 4K for the past 25 years. Heavy use left the garden’s 40 raised beds in need of replac-ing, and many of the garden’s fruit trees needed pruning. Working with the communi-ty, an area school, and volunteers, GrowNYC replaced all 40 raised beds, pruned bushes and trees, moved their stage, and relaid the garden’s borders and pathways, remaking PS 4K into an oasis that can be used by its gar-deners for many years to come.
40,000 square feet of new gardens were developed. 2 new gardens in District Public Health Office zones were created in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office. Volunteers
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ANNUAL PLANT SALE
GrowNYC’s 29th Annual Plant Sale was held in com-munity gardens in Brooklyn and the Bronx over five days. More than 500 groups ordered
and picked up low-cost vegetables, herbs, and flowers to get their community garden-ing projects started. For the fourth year, we accepted SNAP/EBT for edible plants. All in all we sold 221,426 plants, of which 120,391 were edible. The Plant Sale also plays host to Grow to Learn’s spring plant giveaway, where 76 schools pick up free flats of flow-ers, herbs, and vegetables.
OUR VOLUNTEERS
Volunteers put in 7,500 hours at 25 different gardens across the city. We are able to leverage so much additional support to the community gar-
dens we serve. Thank you to the hundreds of individual volunteers who came out to lend a hand and to the following corporate volunteer groups: 33 Across, Aeropostale, AnswerLab, Bank of America, The Bar-clay’s Center, Bloomberg, Brooklyn Nets, Chase, Clarkson University, Deutsche Bank, Disney, dunnhumby, ESRB, Etsy, Federal Reserve, Garnier, Goldman Sachs, Heineken,
Hyatt, Innovest, Interbrand, Jive Software, LinkedIn, Markit, McKinsey, Morgan Stan-ley, NY Institute of Technology, Pepsi, Rev Trax, R/GA, Sony Pictures, Soulcycle, Swiss Re, Terracycle, TIAA-CREF, Timberland, and White & Case LLP.
“ Volunteering with GrowNYC has been a terrific partnership for the past few years. Our employees
have been able to help build and maintain a range of green projects throughout the city, as they gain first-
hand appreciation for the benefits these spaces offer their neighbors. The work can be intensive at times but
is always extremely rewarding.”
Janet WongVolunteer
put in 7,500 hours at 25 gardens citywide. 38 corporate groups volunteered their time to build and improve gardens in all five boroughs (and Governors Island!). 221,426
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GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
GrowNYC’s com-mitment to leading the green infrastruc-ture movement in gardens across the city continued with eight new rainwater harvest-
ing systems we built in community gardens in all five boroughs. We’ve now built over 100 systems over the past decade, collect-ing more than 1,250,000 gallons of water each year. GrowNYC also hosted five green infrastructure workshops, including one at the American Community Garden Conference in Chicago, ensuring that more people across the
plants were sold at the annual plant sale. 8 new rainwater harvesting systems were built in community gardens. The Grow Truck supported more than 100 greening efforts.
city—and the country —learn about the differ-ent ways they can conserve water, reduce the strain on urban sewer systems, and minimize pollution.
Making Gardens More ResilientSuperstorm Sandy came as a surprise to so many New Yorkers and lack of preparedness exacerbated its impact. As weather incidents are more frequent, it is important for com-munity gardeners in the city to take simple steps to minimize damage and have access to information that will help their green spaces bounce back.
Addressing this need, GrowNYC released the Resilient NYC Community Garden Guide, a free guide on making your garden more re-silient, including practical step-by-step guide-lines to minimizing storm damage. The guide is available in print or via our website.
GROW TRUCK
Our mobile tool lend-ing and technical assis-tance service is travers-ing all five boroughs to lend and deliver garden tools, plants, and
horticultural advice to community greening efforts. This year GrowTruck helped support over 100 such projects, giving volunteers and organizations without gardening budgets an opportunity to green the neighborhoods that need it the most. Groups included PS 202 in Brooklyn, Harlem Children’s Zone, Friends of Stryker Park in Manhattan, and PS 396 in the Bronx.
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IN A CITY AS LARGE AS NEW YORK, it is critical that our children experience
the natural world beyond their neighborhood. GrowNYC education programs offer
an opportunity to learn about a spectrum of environmental topics, such as air and
water quality, planting and caring for trees, nutrition and health, growing fresh food,
energy and conservation, how recycling works and why it matters.
Paper AirplanesGrowNYC knows that when you enlist the help of NYC’s smallest —big results follow. 16 schools who participated in our “Big Lift”
recycling contest increased recycling on average by 52 percent.
Be the Change1,500 young people made a difference last year in all corners of the city by participating in GrowNYC’s hands-on environmental education. They took action by planting and mulching 3,100 trees, shrubs and plants and removed invasive plants from nearly 7,000 square feet of shoreline.
Big AppleTouching, tasting, and talking food with the farmers who grew it taught 6,000 children about seasonal eating, nutri-tion, and sustainable agriculture through tours of the Greenmarket farmers mar-kets and accompanying curriculum in the classroom.
Green Teens Every year over 200 young adults are better equipped to face supermarket shelves, fast food menus and life chal-lenges because of GrowNYC’s Learn It Grow It Eat It program. They plant, sell, cook, and teach others all about fresh healthy food while reaping increased awareness, knowledge and skills.
Big PictureGrowNYC sees education for all ages as a foundation for making our com-munities, city and world a better place. We know that the earlier we can teach children, the greater the impact they can make, but whether you are six and only half the height of a sunflower in a school garden or experiencing the unique satis-faction of earning your first paycheck at a Youthmarket all of GrowNYC’s educa-tion programs teach and inspire. When you add up the numbers that comes to 25,000 young people every year and that equals a reason to feel optimistic about the future.
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
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TEACHGreenmarket Youth Education | Recycling Champions
Learn It Grow It Eat It | Environmental Education | Noise
Grow to Learn: Citywide School Garden Initiative
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GREENMARKET YOUTH EDUCATION
Where can a student discuss cheesemak-ing with a dairy farmer who’s raising goats upstate, taste chocolate mint (the herb!), and see more than 80 varieties of
peppers? At their local Greenmarket. More than 6,000 students experienced a
hands-on taste of the farmers market through
In schools where 70% or more of students qualify for the federal free lunch program, students are provided a $2 Greenmarket Buck to spend on local, farm-fresh fruits and vegetables.
For schools seeking a deeper experience for their students, Greenmarket offers the in-school Seed to Plate curriculum. Educa-tors visit the classroom to teach ten lessons focused on farmers markets, seasonal agri-culture, and nutrition. This rich curriculum includes a tasting of regionally grown goods for nearly every lesson, and also incorporates a cooking lesson, a Greenmarket tour, a visit from a guest farmer, and a trip to a Queens County Farm. In 2014 GrowNYC offered the program to 450 fifth and sixth graders at five schools: PS 89 in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn; PS 154 in Mott Haven and PS 47 in Soundview, Bronx; and PS 208 and New Design Middle School in Harlem, Manhattan.
“One of my favorite moments of the program is when the kids get to meet a farmer. We usually bring in a female
farmer when we can, and it is an amaz-ing moment to watch the kids realize
that the woman in the room is not the older male image they had anticipated.
It’s a unique opportunity to have the kids realize that the face of farming is chang-ing, and becoming more inclusive. What an empowering realization to see that a woman can be the head of a successful
farm as well as a man!”
Youth Education Instructor
Greenmarket’s School Tours program in 2014. This incredible opportunity opens the eyes of city kids to agriculture, the life of a farmer, and why it’s important to “eat a rainbow” of fresh foods. Not only do yellow carrots and purple string beans make for an exciting plate, they offer different nutrients and vitamins than their more traditionally hued counterparts. Nutrition, farming, and fun go hand-in-hand on school tours, and it’s not just the kids who are learning—parents and teachers tend to ask as many questions as their curious charges.
Thanks to sponsorships from Slow Food NYC and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, students were able to take home the Greenmarket experience.
6,000+ students participated in the hands-on Greenmarket School Tours program. 450 students graduated from Seed to Plate, a ten-lesson curriculum that teaches students
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RECYCLING CHAMPIONS
A partnership be-tween GrowNYC and the NYC Departments of Education and Sanitation, Recy-
cling Champions develops model recycling programs and best practices at K–12 schools across the city. By educating and empowering students, staff, custodians, and parents, Recy-cling Champions helps make recycling a part of every school day. This year, 102 schools had the opportunity to work with a Recycling Champions outreach coordinator to reduce, reuse, and recycle campus-wide.
Organics Collection360 schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Staten Island separated food scraps for recycling in the cafeteria during the 2013-2014 school year as part of the City’s plan to increase school and res-idential recycling. Recycling Champions made more than 500 visits to work with students and staff at 90 schools. As a result, food scrap recy-cling increased by an average 44%.
The Big LiftRecycling Champions schools were chal-lenged to take part in the month-long “Big Lift” contest. 16 schools competed by weigh-ing recycling and trash from classrooms, of-fices, and cafeterias once a week. Impressive recycling stats include a total of 6,640 pounds of paper, 3,234 pounds of metal, plastic, and cartons, and 1,775 pounds of food scraps
recycled. The grand prize winner was IS 34 in Staten Island while MS 226 in Queens won the prize for Most Improved recycling rate.
School Recycling Goes ViralVideos are a fun way to teach students how and why to recycle, and engage them in environ-mental stewardship and public scholarship. Green Team students at PS 316 Brooklyn and PS 22 Staten Island worked with Recycling Champions staff to create an instructional video on recycling that is fun and easy to understand. Students met on a weekly basis prior to filming, assigned roles, and modified a script, gaining confidence as “educator actors”. See videos on grownyc.org/recyclingchampions
about farmers markets, seasonal agriculture, and nutrition. 16 schools took part in the monthlong Big Lift contest. Big Lift participants averaged a 291% increase in paper recy-
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LEARN IT GROW IT EAT IT
Learn It Grow It Eat It (LGE) is a youth development and outreach program of GrowNYC that works in the Mor-risania section of the South Bronx to im-
prove food access and raise awareness about healthy eating. During the school year, LGE staff offers weekly classroom-based programs and school-sponsored internships in urban hor-ticulture and nutrition education for students enrolled at Bronx Regional High School, Bronx International High School, and Ellis Preparato-ry Academy, reaching 200 students each year. From this group of students, we hire 17 paid summer interns for six weeks. They tend com-munity gardens, learn to cook, teach younger children in the garden, run a Youthmarket, and create and deliver outreach around health and nutrition. As LGE participants learn for them-selves and teach others in their community about the relationship between food, health, their community, and the environment, they make deep personal gains and reach thousands of children and adults each year.
Healthy LessonsLGE collaborated with a dietary student from Queens College to debut new activities about fat and fiber as well as an interactive work-sheet “Is Eating Healthy More Expensive?”—the premise: a family of four chooses from
cling. The Big Lift contest assisted schools in recycling 6,640 lbs of paper. 17 students participated in the summer-long Learn It Grow It Eat It program. 1,500 students took
different options at the local fast food restau-rant, pizza parlor, and a home cooked meal (black bean sweet potato chili) to see which meals are the most and least expensive. The winner…your kitchen! The Intern Does the Job!During spring break, we paid a group of LGE interns to build pea/bean trellises from found wood and branches at the Jacqueline Denise Davis Community Garden in Mor-risania. In summer, our interns interacted with hundreds of adults and children at our weekly Youthmarket and at local community gardens, where they gave small children their
first opportunity to pick a carrot, see eye to eye with a pill bug and help save seeds for the next growing season. The Waiting GameThis year, our LGE teens led dozens of workshops on health and nutrition in the waiting rooms at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. In summer, our outreach team took to the streets to interview groups of people “hang-ing out” about eating healthy. We also ran them through our Fast Food IQ Test, and taught them how to figure out the amount of sugar in popular drinks. The community response? Glad to know!
“I learned that i am a person with a lot of patience and opinions and
that I should speak up more... I learned that it is not easy to grow
organic food”.
Ashley2014 Summer intern
See if you know the answers to these questions which we teach students in our education programs.
1. How many gallons of water does all of New York City use in one day?
2. On average how many teaspoons of sugar do most teenagers consume on average per day?
3. What percentage of our overall electricity comes from oil?
4. Which two states get 25% of their electricity from wind power?
5. How much garbage do New York City residents generate per person every day?
6. How do we know we’re getting all the vitamins and nutrients we need?
7. How many miles does USA food travel before it gets to your home?
Answers: 1. New York City uses 1 billion gallons of water a day; 2. Most teenagers consume an average of 34 teaspoons (136 grams or 544 calo-ries) of sugar per day, mostly from soft drinks; 3. We currently get 37% of our overall electricity from oil; 4. In Iowa and South Dakota 25% of electricity comes from wind power; 5. New York City residents generate 2.3 pounds of garbage per person every day; 6. Eating a rainbow of colors and different parts of the plant, such as celery stalks and sunflower seeds, helps us make sure we’re getting all the vitamins and nutrients we need; 7. On average USA food travels 1500–2000 miles.
part in environmental improvement projects. 1,700 environmental education participants 2 1
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ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
GrowNYC provides young people with an opportunity to address and educate others about a wide range of environ-mental topics, such as air and water
quality, planting and caring for trees, energy and sources of energy and green design.
Student Profile
MARIBEL VITAGLIANI
Maribel Vitagliani joined the DeWitt Clinton High School Environmental Af-fairs Club (EAC) as a junior. She became one of the most active members, participat-
ing in the ongoing construction of the learning garden (built with support from GrowNYC’s school garden program) and several healthy food activities including pop-up Youthmar-kets. These one-day events featured food from the school’s garden supplemented by regional farms for teachers, students and parents. After learning about how watersheds work, and the role trees play in keeping air and water clean, she helped mulch many trees on the school campus.
In her senior year Maribel was the unani-mous choice of her peers to be EAC president. In that role she continued to spur participation in the learning garden, and in healthy food ven-tures such as the Big Apple Crunch where 900 students bit into apples to celebrate Food Day.
Maribel spearheaded the organization of the first successful recycling program in the school’s history, supported by GrowNYC’s Re-cycling Champions program, motivating over a thousand Clinton students and teachers to become involved.
She plans to continue her green lifestyle as a student at Hunter College.
We motivated 1,500 youth in 10 schools to participate in 27 environmental improvement projects citywide. We expanded our environ-mental curriculum to include food by integrat-ing eating healthy and local food into our an-nual Catskill overnight trip on which students visited three farms and were able to harvest asparagus from Greenmarket’s own Lucky Dog Farm. 1,700 of our program participants “crunched” into apples on Big Apple Crunch day and many organized and ran four one-day pop-up Youthmarkets, where they sold $2,300 of fruits and vegetables to 250 parents and teachers.
bit into a New York State apple as part of the Big Apple Crunch. Dewitt Clinton High School students planted 235 native trees and shrubs along the Little Delaware River.
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NOISE
You don’t move to New York City for the qui-et. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to hear yourself think. In 2007 the City updated the Noise Code for the first time in 30 years to reflect the changing landscape and advances in acoustic technology.
Simply put, the Noise Code was created to reduce: “The making, creation or maintenance of excessive and unreasonable and prohibited noises within the city affects and is a menace to public health, comfort, convenience, safety, welfare and the prosperity of the people of the city.”
Where is it coming from? Animals, food trucks, bars and restaurants, refuse collection, cars and motorcycles, air conditioners and much more.
In order to enforce this objective, the New
Bringing Subjects to Life:
A VISIT TO THE WATERSHED
GrowNYC highlighted concepts of sustainable food and water systems explored during the year with students from Dewitt Clinton HS, as staff organized an overnight for Clinton youth to visit the Delaware Watershed in up-state New York. Clinton students traveled to the Catskill Mountains to plant 235 red maple, black walnut, and oth-er native trees and shrubs along the Little Delaware River, a tributary to the Cannonsville Reservoir which provides drinking water to NYC. Organized in cooperation with SUNY Delhi and the Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation district, the planting increased vegetation and helped prevent erosion and subsequent runoff and preserve water quality. They visited three farms, including a visit to see a small-scale cheese operation and cutting edge dairy technology. At Camp Shankitunk, students took a night hike, prepared healthy pizza and salads with produce and products from Lucky Dog Farm (a Greenmar-ket producer) and ate s’mores heated at a campfire. Over the past 12 years, GrowNYC youth have worked with upstate schools to create a lush vegetative zone along the Little Delaware to provide long term protection for NYC’s drinking water. They also have a sense of how life differs outside city limits.
York City Department of Environmental Pro-tection (DEP) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) share duties based on the type of noise complaint. To report a noise complaint, call 311 and they will direct your grievance to the appropriate agency.
GrowNYC is proud to add to that list with our own in-house expert, Dr. Arline Bronzaft, an environmental psychologist who helped draft the city’s noise code. Dr. Bronzaft is a great resource for navigating noise complaints, regularly fielding calls and emails from those in need of noise assistance. A few other tips for mitigating noise pollution in the home—switch to quieter appliances (tea kettles, washing machines, vacuums), playing ambi-ent music, weather-stripping or even installing dual pane windows.
Source: NYCDEP’s “A Guide to NYC’s Noise Code” and Dr. Arline Bronzaft
438 schools have registered garden projects with Grow to Learn. $522,000 in mini-
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GROW TO LEARN
Grow to Learn is a one-stop-shop for NYC public school teachers to
access the funding, garden materials, tools and training needed for school gardens to bloom and NYC students to dig in, get active, connect to nature and start building more positive at-titudes towards healthy food. Grow to Learn’s mission is a garden for every public and charter school in NYC. Together with key partners Parks Department’s GreenThumb Division and the Department of Education, GrowNYC provides school gardeners with the resources they need so that all NYC students have the opportunity to grow food and develop healthier eating behavior, become better environmental stewards, experience rich academic learning environments and directly improve their com-munities.
Since launching in 2011, 438 schools have registered garden projects with Grow to Learn, joining a growing roster and giving them ac-cess to the garden mini-grants, training, ma-terial giveaways as well as opportunities and resources offered by greening and wellness partner organizations and City agencies. We’ve distributed $522,000 in 331 garden mini-grants to schools. Eager to level the playing field (so to speak), we’ve provided targeted outreach and direct technical assistance to help 140 learning gardens grow in high-needs commu-nities in the South Bronx, Central and East Harlem and Central Brooklyn.
grants given to schools specifically for use in 331 school gardens, for an average grant of just over $1,500 at each recipient school. 140 learning gardens in high needs commu-
The Citywide School Gardens Initiative
Planning a Garden• Registering your garden
• Forming a garden committee
• Creating a garden design
• Consensus building workshop
• Conducting community and school outreach
Expanding or Improving a Garden
• School meet and greets
• Advanced workshops
• Expansion grants
• Serving as a demo site for other schools
Building a Garden• Applying for a mini-grant
• GreenThumb resources
• Attending a workshop
• Hosting a work day
• Receiving technical assistance
Using a Garden• Website curriculum supports
• Attending a workshop
• Garden to Café harvest days
HOW WE GROW GARDENS
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Building Local CapacityHelping gardens grow is step one, keeping them thriving is the ultimate goal. With a combination of workshops, socials and phone calls, we helped schools gardeners build ca-pacity and community as part of mission for school garden sustainability. The idea is to create active networks among neighborhoods of school gardens so stakeholders can rely on one another to spur success. Sharing experi-ences with a fellow school gardener allowed the educators to directly connect with a col-league facing similar or new challenges and hearing successes seemed to invigorate many of the participants.
Nurse Echols from PS/MS 218 and Paul Joseph from Brooklyn High School for Lead-ership and Community Service connected immediately and their faces lit up and they even hugged when they met in person at the Field of Greens workshop hosted at Grow to Learn’s office and demonstration garden. The workshop (one of several given) proved to be a powerful way to connect school gardeners to each other and help them tap into resources, networks and training opportunities offered by Grow to Learn and partner organizations.
nities were assisted through the Grow to Learn program. Students sold $2 , 300 of fruits and vegetables to 250 parents and teachers at four one-day pop-up Youthmarkets.
“The students were thrilled to plant in the garden. It was difficult to stop the
digging! Children were marking where they planted their bulbs and seeds so they could watch them grow.
The best quote came from a third grader...”This is better than a field trip!” Thank you Grow to Learn!!”
Gardener at PS 199m
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NEW YORKERS IN EVERY BOROUGH better understand recycling rules and
take advantage of free resources to recycle as much as possible thanks to our
Office of Recycling Outreach and Education. We work alongside the NYC Department of
Sanitation to increase the percentage of recyclables diverted from disposal and to promote waste reduction, reuse and
composting efforts. This program of GrowNYC’s is funded by the NYC
Department of Sanitation.
Recycling is FundamentalTeaching New Yorkers the how and why of recycling is a key part of GrowNYC’s mission. To help save money, energy, and the planet, we provided hands-on assistance to 122 NYC apartment buildings, engaging supers, tenants and landlords alike in ensuring successful building-wide recycling.
Bigger can be betterWe organized recycling efforts at ten major public events including the National Puerto Rican Day Parade and the TD Five Boro Bike Tour, helping draft a plan, training and mobilizing volunteers for day-of and implementing recycling stations, dramatically reducing waste at public events and teaching some 230,000 New Yorkers in the process.
No Shirt/No Shoes/No Problem We kept 3.2 million pounds of textiles out of the landfill via textile recycling at Greenmarket, helping reduce waste and put usable materials back on the market.
Waste Not Diverted 3.9 million pounds of food scraps from disposal for compost-ing. Participation in recycling and com-posting are two of the most powerful ways to curb climate change.
Pop Some TagsFreegan shoppers rejoice —It’s a pop up thrift shop nearly every week some-where in NYC. GrowNYC hosted 31 Stop ‘N’ Swap® community reuse events, putting 33 tons of items back into peo-ple’s homes rather than a landfill.
Curbside CompostingWe supported NYC Department of Sanitation’s organics collection pro-gram, providing hands-on outreach to 72 buildings so far, ensuring successful composting for a long time to come for NYC residents.
TOP ACHIEVEMENTS
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RECYCLEStop ‘N’ Swap® | Event Recycling
Textile Recycling
Food Scrap Collection | Building Recycling
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STOP ‘N’ SWAP®
In our first full year with a dedicated team, GrowNYC’s Stop ‘N’ Swap® coordinators held a record 31 com-munity reuse events across the five
boroughs, including 14 community districts that experienced a swap for the first time.
EVENT RECYCLING
Educating New Yorkers to “Think Before They Throw”This year our Event Recycling Coordina-tor worked hand-in-hand with dozens of event sponsors and
producers to simplify and help reduce the envi-ronmental footprint of events through innova-tive planning on waste reduction and recycling. Our community of volunteers has grown to more than 450, logging 1,800+ hours educating festival goers on the importance of recycling. Their efforts reached an audience of more than 230,000 New Yorkers at events like Summer Streets, Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, Maker Faire, TD Five Boro Bike Tour, and the National Puerto Rican Day Parade.
Stop ‘N’ Swap® provides the opportunity to give new life to unwanted items—literally a ton per event—with close to 85% of all items “regifted” during the swap. Nearly 6,000 New Yorkers have participated since the program’s expansion, either bringing an item to give away, or simply coming to see what’s free. Stop ‘N’ Swap® has also won the hearts of its volunteers, gaining recognition from groups like the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Future Leaders Program and receiving the Vivacious Volunteer award from Baruch College’s Sigma Alpha Delta Honor Society for granting them meaningful volunteer opportunities.
Stop ‘N’ Swap® organized 3 1 community reuse events. 450 volunteers supported recycling at events citywide. 10 new textile recycling sites established at Greenmarkets.
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FOOD SCRAP COLLECTION
Heading to the Greenmarket? Don’t forget your tote bag, shopping list and food scraps! More and more New Yorkers are adding composting to their
routines, and Greenmarket shoppers are lead-ing the way. This year we added three new food scrap drop-off sites, for a total of 33 sites under our management.
Since 2011 we’ve collected more than three million pounds of material for beneficial reuse, in partnership with the NYC Depart-ment of Sanitation and community compost partners. With participation and tonnage up 55% compared to 2013, we’re not only setting records, we’re securing the notion that NYC’s food waste should be nourishing the land-scape, not feeding a landfill.
TEXTILE RECYCLING
In an effort to meet the demand for recycling services at Greenmarkets, we added ten new tex-tile collection sites this year, bringing the total to 36 neigh-borhood drop-offs
for New Yorkers to drop unwanted clothing, shoes, bedding and other textiles. Overall participation was up 27%, helping us divert almost 350 tons of waste from disposal. Since the program began, we have recycled over 3.2 million pounds of textiles.
BUILDING RECYCLING
Our staff is steadily working to improve building recycling programs and educate tenants and building staff. We also work alongside the NYC Depart-
ment of Sanitation to recruit large buildings for the curbside Organics Collection Program. In 2014, we recruited the first apartment complex in Staten Island to the city’s re-fash-ionNYC and e-cycleNYC programs, officially making the textile and electronic recycling efforts five borough programs. In our ongo-ing effort to innovate and tailor solutions to individual buildings, we began working with building supers and building managers to install “wallbaggers” as part of our chute room makeover service, addressing one of the most challenging obstacles to proper recycling.
3. 2 mill ion lbs of unwanted clothing were diverted from the waste stream. 3.9 mill ion lbs of food scraps have been composted through food scrap collections since 2011.
WHO ARE WE WORKING WITH?
122 Buildings
170 supers
1,200 tenants
102 schools
50,400 students and staff
20,000 people at public events
10 major street fair and other events
233,000 total attendees
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What would NYC be like without you? Less interesting and not as attractive, obviously. But also...
Without you, GrowNYC can’t create a cleaner, greener city.
There is no more important source of support than yours. Your gift allows us to cover new investments, unexpected costs, and critical pro-gram support that we would otherwise have to do without.
Your support makes all the difference.Your donations keep your community thriving. You support farmers and regional food production when you shop at our Greenmarkets. You make sure green spaces thrive when you volunteer at a garden. You make sure the next generation contin-ues to protect our city and planet when you request GrowNYC programming at your child’s school. You make sure good food gets into neighborhoods that need it most when you participate in Fresh Food Box.
You make it happen. GrowNYC provides the tools. Please give and give generously. Know your investment is in good hands: 87 cents of every dollar directly underwrites program services—be it a youth-run farmstand in Brownsville Brooklyn or a field trip to the learning garden for a classroom of young people.
51 Chambers Street, #228, NY, NY 10007
Fewer community gardens.
Less fresh food.
400+ school gardens absent.
before
www.grownyc.org/donateThe 20,000 square foot El Sitio Feliz Community Garden in East Harlem suffered substantial damage during Hurricane Sandy. GrowNYC rebuilt the garden in the summer of 2013, installing more than 50 raised beds, six picnic tables, and a new children’s garden area.
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after
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To Mayor Bill de Blasio, Members, Contributors, Volunteers, Staff and Friends:
GrowNYC in 2014 continued as the beacon lighting my way to act in recognition of the fact that the quality of our air, water and land is an essential contributor to the quality of my life as a resident of our City. Reciprocally, what I and the rest of us do and the way we live directly affect the natural environment that sustains us, even in this densely packed urban center.
None of us own GrowNYC. But when I participate in or contribute to GrowNYC activities, I believe my personal commitment creates a meaningful bond with the orga-nization and its programs, and a part of it becomes mine.
Throughout our Annual Report and on our website you can see the impact of GrowNYC’s activities on people and places generally. But, I would like to use this mes-sage this year to speak about how I personally have interacted with “my GrowNYC”.
I used our New Geenmarket Cookbook to try out some recipes for locally-grown products in my kitchen. And, I delivered the leftover food scraps for composting to the drop-off center at my local Greenmarket (dropped off a bag of used batteries and eyeglass frames for recycling too). Of course, I picked up some fish, veggies and apples at the market while I was there.
I took some visitors to the recently opened Governor’s Island Teaching Garden and revis-ited the urban farm on Randall’s Island to see children learning about growing fresh food. I also looked in at the school garden—one of over 400 supported by GrowNYC—at the middle school in my neighborhood to see how the students had transformed a bleak stretch of asphalt into a spot of green life. Still in my neighborhood, I stopped in to see the distribution of Fresh Food Boxes at a local senior citizens center.
Riding my bike in upper Manhattan one Saturday, I parked next to a community gar-den and sat on a bench there for a needed rest and a snack. I was happy to see practices pro-moted by our new Resilient NYC Community Garden Guide put into actual use at this lot and for the neighborhood to have this delight-ful spot of nature.
In my own building, I worked with our super to make sure that the lessons taught by our Office of Recycling Outreach and Educa-tion were understood and implemented. And, I consulted the GrowNYC website to confirm that we had the right posters up and that my own waste separation habits were correct.
As you can see, following the lead of the talented and dedicated staff at GrowNYC working under our Executive Director Marcel Van Ooyen, I have found innumerable ways to incorporate into my own lifestyle sustain-able and environmentally friendly habits promoted by this wonderful nonprofit orga-nization. And, I am pleased once again to be able to report that New York City is a better, healthier and happier place because of the ef-forts of GrowNYC.
Robert J. Kafin
LETTER FROM THE CHAIRA Letter From Robert J. Kafin, Chairman
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At 5pm on a September Wednesday evening, GrowNYC received an email from Melissa, a staffer at Kenmore Hall, a supportive hous-ing site that serves 325 formerly homeless tenants.
It said, “Early this morning, a fire was accidentally started in one of our tenants’ rooms which triggered the fire sprinkler system on that floor, leading to flooding and eventually the shutdown of the elevators. It’s a big building here—23 stories—and many of our tenants are older and/or medically frail, with wheelchairs and walkers. Staff has been checking on tenants all day and taking them prepared food from our pantry, but we’re close to running out. Anything that we could receive to help us out until the elevators are back on tomorrow would be invaluable to us. Our tenants could most use bread and produce that does not need to be cooked (fruit, carrots, etc.). Ideally, we could use any loaves of bread/rolls that are available, any amount of fruit, any amount of lettuce, and 30-40 bunches of dark greens (collards, kale, chard).”
GrowNYC immediately mobilized at the end of a rainy day to gather donations of fresh food from a variety of farmers at our Union Square Greenmarket—all eager to help. Berried Treasures donated heirloom to-matoes, Migliorelli, S&So and Paffenroth do-nated salad greens, carrots and saute greens, while Bread Alone, Our Daily Bread and Hot Bread kitchen gave bread. We were able to provide everything they requested on their
list so that the residents could eat well in the coming days as they dealt with the effects of the fire.
Melissa was pleased with the results: “GrowNYC responded immediately to our crisis by reaching out to farmers in their network and thanks to their fast work and generosity, we were able to provide our ten-ants with fresh bread and local produce for
healthy meals and snacks within hours of our initial call. On behalf of all of us—and especially our tenants—a heartfelt thank you to everyone at GrowNYC!”
Much like our work to mobilize food de-livery after Super Storm Sandy, I am so proud of our staff for going above and beyond to solve problems like these, with speed and grace. That is what we are here for. We are a resource for all New Yorkers who want ac-cess to the tools and services we provide that make their lives better and the lives of their neighbors.
I know this story, along with so many others I hear from staff and New Yorkers we serve, inspired me. I hope it inspires you as well. To participate. To Volunteer. To Give.
Marcel Van Ooyen
WHAT INSPIRES MEA Story From Marcel Van Ooyen, Executive Director
We are a resource for all New Yorkers who want access to the tools and services
we provide that make their lives better and the lives of their neighbors.
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FUNDERSJULY 1, 2013–JUNE 30, 2014
$10,000+Louis and Anne Abrons
Foundation
Altman Foundation
Anderson Rogers Foundation
Anonymous
Bank of America Foundation
Burpee Foundation
Butler Conservation Fund
Community Energy
Consolidated Edison Company of New York
Cornell Douglas Foundation
Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation
Diageo North America Foundation
Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
Disney Worldwide Services, Inc.
Drexel University
The Durst Organization
EmblemHealth
Empire State Development
Evergreen Packaging
Evian
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Joyce and Irving Goldman Family Foundation
Gotham Bar and Grill
The William and Mary Greve Foundation
Green Mountain Energy Company
Heineken
Marian Heiskell
Geoffrey C. Hughes Foundation
Howard Hughes Corporation
Interbrand
The Leir Charitable Foundations
The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation
Mayor’s Fund to Advance NYC
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Mount Sinai Hospital
New World Foundation
New York Community Trust
New York City Council
New York Farm Viability Institute
New York State Department of Health
New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets
New York State Office of the Attorney General
Betsy and Richard Rathe
Ridgefield Foundation
Morris and Alma Schapiro Fund
Seeds of Change
Marty and Dorothy Silverman Foundation
Dr. Robert C. and Tina Sohn Foundation
Sony Pictures Entertainment
SoulCycle
Swiss Re
USDA
Waste Management
Rodney L. White Foundation
$5,000–$9,999Alliance for Downtown
New York
Appalachian Regional Commission
Bon Secours Health System
Gwendolyn Burton
The Caliban Foundation
Chef’s Warehouse Inc.
Victoria Contino
Erica and Anand Desai
Jacqueline Dryfoos
Farm Aid
Friends of Van Cortlandt Park
Garnier
Sara and David Johnson
Edith and Herbert Lehman Foundation
Kiwi Energy
McKinsey & Company
Myrtle Avenue District Management Association
New Yankee Stadium Community Benefits Fund
Omni New York LLC
Participant Media
Pfizer, Inc.
New York State Pollution Prevention Institute
Charles Ramat
Rockaway Development and Revitalization Corp.
Russell Berrie Foundation
South Wind Foundation
John and Barbara Samuelson Foundation
Sonia Toledo
The Unter Agency
United Way of NYC
John Warren
Wholesome Wave Foundation, Inc.
$1,000–$4,999Alexandria Real Estate
Equities
Jeffrey Aldana
AnswerLab
Nancy Alderman
Pamela Auchincloss
Barclay’s
Jordan Barowitz
Willard Beckham
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Amy Bell
Bell’s Brewery
Andrew Bowman
Bronx Lebanon Hospital
Brooklyn Brewery
Suzanne Buchta
Calvin Klein
City Gardens Club of NYC
Civic Entertainment Group
Clif Bar Family Foundation
Columbia Hudson Ventures
Common Man Restaurant
Cowles Charitable Trust
Cypress Hills Local Development Corp.
Vanessa Dones
Steve Doran
Double Cross Vodka
Dunnhumby USA
Elmhurst Hospital Center
Daniel Epstein
Vanessa Fata
Roberto Fata
Molly and Everard Findlay
First Service Residential New York
Foothold Technology
G.A.F Seelig
Michael B. Gerrard
Elisha Goldberg
Budd Goldman
Goldman Sachs & Co.
Gramercy Park Foundation
Great Performances
Samuel Greenfield
Jeffrey and Paula Gural
Carol and Robert Kafin
N. Richard Kalikow
Kiehl’s
Elissa Kramer
Bill Lambert
LRN Corporation
Gary Levy
Alan Locker
John S. Lyons
Joann Makovitzky
Kate McKay
Nicholas Mautone
Scott Miller
Morgan Stanley
New York State Apple Growers Association
New York Road Runners
Liz Neumark
Nippon Steel
Norinchukin Foundation
NYS Office of Children and Family Services
Joe Quinlan
Oasis Productions Inc.
Sara Plath
Open Space Institute
Pepsi Co.
Pimco LLC
Courtney Quinlan
Robert and Adelle Rathe
Rochester Institute of Technology
Nick Scharlatt
Eugene Schneur
Myles Share
Scarlet Shore
Katherine Spector
Patricia Spencer
Richard M. Schwartz, Esq.
Slow Food NYC
Stainman Family Foundation
Stella Strombolis
Sugar Mountain Guest Services
TIAA-CREF Corp Volunteers
Totem Films and Video Productions
Van Itallie Foundation
Venable Foundation
Leo S. Walsh Foundation
White & Case
Shawn Winter
Wit Media
$100-$9994Food
Adam and Lisa Ableman
Robert Alpern
American Endowment Foundation
American Express
Anonymous
Christopher Ashley
Ninth Avenue Association of New York
Marian Bach
Leora Barish
Mary Beinet
Pamela Benepe
Michele Burger and Tom Cramer
Mary Fisher Bernet
Brenda Berry
Erik Bierbauer
Nancy Billman
Bridgewood Fieldwater Foundation
Dr. Arline Bronzaft
Brown Shoe
Buffalo Exchange
Rosemary Calderon
“I love my greenmarket and that I can recycle
compost and other things there! It’s amazing. I love
that urban farms are sprouting up
everywhere and that I can buy local honey.
Please keep it up!”
—Charlene Ray
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Charity Buzz
Thea Charles
Divya Chhibba
Erin Collins
Omar Jadwat and Molly Doherty
Samuel and Louise Edelman
Ernst & Young Foundation
Etsy
Elliot Felix
Daisy Friedman
Tracee Galtieri
Peter Giguere
Eric Goldstein
Mark Gordon
Linda Grasso and Michael Rieser
Montego Glover
Nathaniel Gong
Susan E. Green
Nancy Hager
Keith Haskel
Susan Herzberg
Jon Hlafter
Jonathan Hochhauser
Amanda Hoffman
Chris Holbrook
Rita Houlihan
Mayhsin Hsiung
IMS
Innogive Foundation
Integrated Interactive Marketing
Patty Intrator
Just Give
Ashley Koff
Alfred Milanese
Alice Prince
Allen and Samantha Katz
Neil D. and Eileen Klar
Richard and John Klein
Kenneth Koen
Steven Kofsky
Sarah Kovner
Joel Kurtzberg
Linda Lennon
Rebecca Lewin
Carol and David Locke
Ann Longmore
Virginia Lovejoy and Carl Podwoski
William Lopez
Anne Lyons
Steven McClure
Mary McGarry
Stacey McMath
Nancy and Jess Mobley
Samuel Moskowitz
Elizabeth Myers
Emily Nammacher
Natural Gourmet Institute
New York Presbyterian Hospital
Howard Nizewitz
Andrew Newman
Mary Orsi
Jason Ostenson
Sarah Palmer
Jeffrey and Cynthia Penney Fund
L.E. Phillips Family Foundation
George Pine
Public Health Solutions
Tara Reddi
Matthew Reid
Philip Rizzolo
Jeffrey Salinger, Esq.
The San Francisco Foundation
Elisabeth Scharlatt
Brendan Sexton
Harriet Shalat
Deborah Shapiro
Lynn B. Sheward
Sheethal Shobowale
Susannah Spodek
Andrea Starr
Ann Sterman
Eva Tan
Susan and Donald Thaler
Will Turnage
Ginger Wey
Dovie F. Wingard
Carol and Edward Wolf
Kristina Whittaker
Laurie Weltz
Ed Yowell
Harun Zankel
Krista Zuber
Jeffrey Zurofsky
Debi Zvi
“I give to GrowNYC because when we
were kids we had a vegetable garden and my mom taught me a lot about nutrition
and healthy foods. Food deserts and obesity diagnoses are growing. With
their school garden program, GrowNYC
helps to combat these issues and to
give today’s children the same joys of
gardens and healthy food that I had as
a child.”
—Suzanne Buchta
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IN-KIND DONORS
33 Across
Added Value/Red Hook Community Farm
Anthony Road Wine Co.
Bad Seed Cider Co.
Bakers Bounty
The Battery Conservancy
Bobolink Dairy
Bread Alone
Brooklyn Brewery
Brooklyn Plantology by Lapide
Build It Green!NYC
Cato Corner Farm
Chelsea Garden Center
Clarkson University
The Cleaver Co.
Consumer Reports/Greener Choices
Delaware & Hudson
Delaware County Soil and Water Conservation District
Divine Brine Foods Inc
Earth Matter
Edible Manhattan
Experian QAS
Flying Pigs Farm
Food52
The Food Network
The Food Stand/Purpose
Forest City Ratner
Gotham Bar and Grill
Gowanus Canal Conservancy
Gramercy Tavern
Green Thumb
Great Performances
Hawthorne Valley Farm
Healthway Farms
Heritage Radio
Hot Bread Kitchen
Hudson Valley Duck Farm
Hyatt
Innovest
Katchkie Farm
KelSo Beer
La Meunerie Milanaise/Robert Beauchemin
Las Delicias
Lower East Side Ecology Center
Lucky Dog Farm
Marchele’ Lalena Davis-Mabry
Mark It
Martin’s Pretzels
Modern Farmer
Mountain Sweet Berry Farm
The Natural Gourmet Institute
NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation
New York Institute of Technology
The New York Red Bulls
New York Restoration Project
New York State Apple Growers Association
Northeast Brooklyn Housing Development Corporation
Oechsner Farms
The Orchards of Concklin
Our Daily Bread
Queens County Farm Museum
Quinciple
Pratt Industries
Prospect Hill Orchards
Rick’s Picks
Runner & Stone
S&SO Produce
Samascott Orchards
Saveur
Seasons Neighborhood Nursery Garden Center
Sfoglini Pasta
SUNY Delhi
W. Rogowski Farm
Tonjes Farm Dairy
Tory Burch
Terracycle
Trust for Governors Island
Urban Garden Center
Valley Malt
Valley Shepherd Creamery
Wit Media
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Marian S. Heiskell Honorary Chair
Robert J. Kafin, Esq. Chair
Steven P. Salsberg, Esq. Vice Chair
Marcel J. Van Ooyen Executive Director
MEMBERSRichard Abrons
Pamela Auchincloss Auchincloss/Arts Management
Jordan Barowitz The Durst Organization
Comm. Mary Bassett, MD, MPH NYC Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene
Dr. Arline Bronzaft Lehman College, CUNY
Victoria Contino, Esq. Wilson Elser LLP
Jacqueline Dryfoos Psychotherapist
Christopher J. Elliman Open Space Institute
Everard Findlay Everard Findlay LLC
Comm. Kathryn Garcia NYC Dept. of Sanitation
Michael B. Gerrard, Esq. Arnold & Porter LLP
Eric A. Goldstein, Esq. Natural Resources Defense Council
Cornelia Guest
Comm. Emily Lloyd NYC Dept. of Environmental Protection
John S. Lyons Producer
Liz Neumark Great Performances
Lys McLaughlin Pike
Charles S. Ramat Continental Home Loans, Inc.
Jeff Salinger, Esq. Shearman & Sterling LLP
Barbara S. Samuelson Merrill Lynch
Axel A. Santiago Pfizer,Inc.
Nick Scharlatt Foothold Technology
Eugene Schneur Omni New York LLC
Richard M. Schwartz, Esq. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Comm. Mitchell Silver NYC Dept. of Parks and Recreation
Stella Strombolis
Eva Tan LoCicero & Tan, Inc.
Sonia M. Toledo Wells Fargo
Comm. Polly Trottenberg NYC Dept. of Transportation
Jeffrey Zurofsky ‘wichcraft
MEMBERS
3 9
Marcel Van Ooyen Executive Director
Julie A. Walsh Assistant Director
Dennis Conroy Comptroller
David Hurd Director,Officeof Recycling Outreach & Education
Michael Hurwitz Director, Greenmarket
Gerard Lordahl Director, Open Space Greening Program
Tom Strumolo Director Planning & Policy, Greenmarket
Michael Zamm Director, Environmental Education Program
EDUCATION David Saphire LGE CoordinatorRobert Lock Director, Recycling ChampionsJessie Kerr-Vanderslice Director, Grow to Learn: Citywide School Garden InitiativeKira Milo-Cohen Greenmarket Youth Education Coordinator
OPEN SPACE GREENINGLenny Librizzi Assistant DirectorEmma BanayRachel BrauserSean BrodyLars ChellbergShawn ConnellSiebert HarperMatthew MiliMichael Rezny
OFFICE OF RECYCLING OUTREACH AND EDUCATIONChristina Salvi Assistant DirectorJohn Johnson
Jonathan KlarAna-Paula PaglioneMichael RieserErmin SiljkovicJae WatkinsVitaliy Piltser
RECYCLING CHAMPIONSThaddeus CopelandKristal Ibarra-RodriguezLaura PirainoKatherine Wimsatt
COMPOSTLuis AlejandroWilliam JettNicholas KnollAaron NesserPeter Tzannes
STOP N SWAP®
Carl-Harry NauThomas Zellers
GREENMARKETCheryl Huber Assistant DirectorSamantha BlatteisJessenia CagleLiz Carollo Cory Cervone
Cathy ChambersKathleen Crosby Jessica Douglas Jamie Gaehring Laurel HalterCaroline Hitshew Margaret Hoffman David Hughes Tara LaRuffaMarkella LosLaura McDonaldLuciana RamirezJune RussellBrittany RyanLobsang SamtenRobert Shepherd Alexis StevensLisa Valinsky Chelsea WhittakerJun Wang
GREENMARKET CO.Olivia Blanchflower Project ManagerJacqueline BachBrian GoldblattTevon McNairAshley MuellerPoul PriceNicole TuckerMando Zapata
FARMROOTSChristopher Wayne DirectorMaria Rojas
YOUTHMARKET Koraljka Petrovic Operations Coordinator
ADMINISTRATIONNatalie Cramer Individual Giving CoordinatorAmanda Gentile Development and Communications Monique Rodriguez Administrative ManagerTasha Washington Administrative AssistantCindy Ma Accounts PayableBenjamin Gordon Vehicle CoordinatorNathan Patterson Government Grants
STAFF
4 0
GROWNYC FINANCESFISCAL YEAR 2014
OPERATING REVENUESFoundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,075,028
Individuals/Corporations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $779,847
Government Contracts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3,481,761
Contributed Facilities/Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,150,376 1
Greenmarket Fees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3,498,287
Other Income . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,271,950 2
Total Operating Revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11,257,249
Change in Operating Net Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . $173,500
NON-OPERATING REVENUESInterest & Dividends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $72,775
Investment Income. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $136,464
Total Non-Operating Revenue . . . . . . . . . . . . $209,239
Change in Net Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $382,739End of Year Net Asset Balance . . . . . . . . . . . $4,625,915 3
EXPENSESEnvironmental Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $764,930
Greenmarket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3,589,242
Hunger, Farmer Development, and Food Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2,386,449
Open Space Greening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,334,545
Office of Recycling Outreach & Education. . . . . $1,549,534
Public Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $61,542
Management and general. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $781,884
Fundraising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $615,623 1
Total Expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $11,083,749
1 Contributed Facilities/Services revenue is offset by an equivalent expense amount. In fiscal year 2014, the portion of contributed services allocated to fundraising was $175,000.2 Includes net proceeds of special events and fees for services.3 Includes Operating Reserve Fund, temporarily restricted assets and the Board designated investment fund which functions as an endowment.
Financial statements for the year ended June 30, 2014 have been audited by Marks Paneth & Shron LLP, Certified Public Accountants. The latest annual financial report has been filed with the NYS OAG, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, NY, NY 10271. A copy may be obtained from GrowNYC, 51 Chambers Street, #228, NY, NY 10007.
4 1
CREDITS
GrowNYC is a hands-on environmental nonprofit whose goal is to help you make New York City the most sustainable and livable city in the world. More gardens, greenmarkets, more recycling, and education for all.
PHOTO CREDITSat-a-glance Amanda Gentile (all)1 Amanda Gentile 2 GrowNYC (left); Olivia Blanchflower3 Amanda Gentile4 Clockwise from top left: Amanda Gentile;
GrowNYC; Nicole Tucker; Christophe Tedjasukmana
5 Clockwise from top left: Olivia Blanchflower; June Russell; Kori Petrovic
6 Maria Rojas (left); Chris Wayne 7 Olivia Blanchflower (left); Rishma
Rodriguez8 Kori Petrovic (all)10 United Way of New York City (left);
Jessica Klajman11 Mike Rezny12 Clockwise from Morning Glory:
Amanda Gentile; Mike Rezny; Lenny Librizzi; Mike Rezny
13 United Way of New York City (left); Mike Rezny
14 Clockwise from top left: Heineken USA; Jessica Klajman; Jessica Klajman; GrowNYC
15 Clockwise from top left: Lenny Librizzi; Rachel Styer; Brittany Quale
16 From left to right: GrowNYC; Amanda Gentile; Kori Petrovic
17 Amanda Gentile18 Amanda Gentile (all)19 Amanda Gentile (top); Robbie Lock 20 Amanda Gentile (left); Kori Petrovic21 Amanda Gentile22 Clockwise from top left: Amanda Gentile;
Provided by Maribel Vitagliani; Jessica Klajman
23 Daniel Case (“East Branch Delaware River at Margaretville, NY,” licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license); Alex Dibrova / Shutterstock
24 Emma Banay25 Clockwise from top left: Amanda Gentile;
GrowNYC; Phyllis Odessey26 Clockwise from top left: Ana Paglione;
Peter Tzannes; Jon Klar27 Amanda Gentile28 Vitaliy Piltser (top); Jessica Klajman29 Jessica Klajman (left); Jessica Klajman
(center); Jon Klar30 Ari Briski (top); GrowNYC 31 Mike Rezny32 Amanda Gentile33 Amanda Gentile35 Amanda Gentile36 Provided by Suzanne Buchtaback cover GrowNYC
WWW.GROWNYC.ORG
51 Chambers Street, Room #228 New York, NY 10007
212.788.7900
