Catchafire

Green Guerillas uses a unique mix of education, organizing, and advocacy to help people cultivate community gardens, sustain grassroots groups and coalitions, engage youth, paint colorful murals, and address issues critical to the future of their gardens.

Each year Green Guerillas gets 200 community garden groups in neighborhoods like the East Village, East New York, Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and the South Bronx the plants, funding, and people power they need to:

* improve their community gardens
* strengthen their grassroots groups
* grow thousands of pounds of food for their families and neighbors
* engage young people
* recruit new community gardeners and urban farmers
* undertake community development and food justice projects
* organize events and workshops
* work in coalition

Much of our work is focused in central Brooklyn, and our Bedford-Stuyvesant office serves as a center for organizing where young people learn to become community organizers, food justice advocates, and urban farmers.

Two new programs are helping Green Guerillas increase our impact at a time when our services are needed more than ever:

Brooklyn Community Garden Fund: We partner with the Brooklyn Community Foundation to award small grants to Brooklyn's diverse community garden groups. We just wrapped up the pilot year of the program -- 29 grants supported everything from compost bins to children's garden festivals.

HS for Public Service Youth Farm: We support the urban farmers, teachers, PTA, and students of this vibrant high school in Crown Heights as they grow thousands of pounds of fresh healthy fruits and vegetables on school grounds, manage a weekly farmers market, and engage the community in food justice activities.

Green Guerillas is generously supported by 30 foundations and corporations, 3 City Councilpeople, 400 dues-paying members, and 200 people who attend our annual benefit party at the Bryant Park Grill.