Urban Harvest Farm at Ujima is an urban farm community resource operated by Slow Food NYC. This project is to expand our composting efforts, high school internships, and community event programs.
Leader
Richard Glosser
Location
660 New Jersey Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11027
Urban Harvest Farm at Ujima in East New York is an urban farm community resource operated by Slow Food NYC during the growing season. This project is to expand our composting efforts, high school internships, and community event programs. We offer free educational programming for children and families in the community and serve as a hub for summer high school internships, educating children about where food comes from, and how it affects their own health and the planet, empowering them to act as positive environmental actors for themselves and the surrounding community. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Slow Food NYC's Urban Harvest program shifted gears, partnering with local community centers to donate and distribute fresh, culturally-sensitive produce. In 2022, as inflation continues to impact food insecurity, Slow Food NYC continues in its mission to support the community through offering food production and distribution alongside educational programs.
This year, your support will allow us to broaden our composting efforts within the community, develop more youth and family education opportunities, offer no-cost, fresh produce, and increase biodiversity at our farm by helping us plant a variety of new seeds.
Slow Food NYC is the New York City chapter of Slow Food, a grassroots organization working towards a food system that is good, clean, and fair for all. We've operated our Urban Harvest Farm at Ujima in East New York since 2010, and typically host a tuition-free structured learning experience where neighborhood children annually participate in learning about sustainable growing practices and nutrition education. Last year amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched a no-cost food distribution program to community partners in our East New York neighborhood. This New York City neighborhood has the highest concentration of fast-food restaurants in all five boroughs, and rates of both obesity and food insecurity are higher in this community compared to city-wide averages. Urban Harvest Farm at Ujima aims to provide appealing and easily accessible alternatives to the multitude of fast-food options by reinforcing our garden as a well-known and welcoming destination for healthy, nourishing food and nutrition education. We are actively working to further remove barriers to access by distributing our fresh, garden-grown produce across multiple community sites.