Save Farm School NYC!

Farm School NYC is a collective of farmers, gardeners, food justice advocates and activists offering NYC residents comprehensive training in urban agriculture.

Our Work
Since 2010, Farm School NYC has educated hundreds of adults through a 20-course, hands-on curriculum taught by experts in the field. Courses cover a wide range of topics from social justice issues, to urban planting techniques, to grassroots community organizing. Through engaging, 
place-based education, our classes cultivate future leaders in NYC's food justice movement.

Our Challenge
Due to increasing demand on limited resources, Farm School NYC did not receive a renewal of the federal grant that funded more than 90% of our budget for our first three years. This as an opportunity to return to our grassroots beginnings, rethink an outmoded grant-heavy fundraising model and reconnect to our community. We need your help!

Your Role
We are launching a special campaign to raise $180,000 to support our work in 2015:

• holding 20 classes
• educating 200+ students
• supporting 15 skilled apprentices in urban farms across the city
• offering our city’s best farmers much-needed supplemental income by sharing their knowledge

Moreover, we will be overturning old models of organization and developing a plan to build a sustainable, community-supported school to serve our city for years to come.

Tuition income, grants, strategic partnerships and other efforts will help round out next year’s budget, but we need your help!

On December 3, 2014, Farm School NYC will begin the first course of its 2015 school year, Training of Trainers. Twenty courses -- from Food Justice to Botany, Irrigation to Propagation -- will soon follow, employing more than 20 expert urban farmers and educating 200+ students.

Our initial fundraising efforts on ioby will support:

• Teacher Compensation: Our sliding scale tuition makes classes accessible to all New Yorkers, and our teacher competitive compensation offers professional farmers much needed supplemental income. We need funds immediately to help us make up the gap.
   
• Administration: Our staff hires instructors, secures class space, registers and supports students, guides our 15 farm apprentices, and engages and serves the school's large community of alumni, committee members, volunteers and supporters.
   
• ​Strategic Planning: Our executive board of farmers and food justice activists needs support to create the more sustainable, less grant-dependent, community-supported Farm School NYC of the future.

New York City is a place with growing wealth and health disparities, where access to healthy food is tenuous for many, and communities can be fractured by social, economic and racial injustice.

Urban farms provide a host of benefits--they increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved neighborhoods; they help reduce crime and create safer, greener public spaces; they redirect rainwater to lessen the impact on our failing waste water management systems; they help rid city soils of pollutants through composting and remediation; they create job and entrepreneurship opportunities; they are cornerstones of vibrant, engaged communities. Farm School NYC is committed to offering comprehensive, professional training to educate the future leaders of our city’s farms and food-based initiatives.

Alumni have gone on to staff and lead agricultural projects throughout the city, state and beyond.