helping community gardens and gardeners thrive

The fiscal crisis of the early 70’s saw the original band of Green Guerillas rally people to use community gardening as a tool to reclaim urban land, stabilize city blocks, and get people working side by side to solve problems. The current economic crisis will present a new set of challenges, and community gardeners will respond as they did in the early days: using ordinary pieces of urban land to do extraordinary things. They will bring people together to grow food, cultivate colorful gardens, celebrate cultures, and give city kids safe places to spend the summer.

Green Guerillas will work hard to help community gardeners sustain their gardens and strengthen their collective action.

Our staff, interns, and volunteers are currently engaged in activities to:

Get information on critical issues to New York City’s 600+ community garden groups.

Distribute plants, materials, and advice to 200 community garden groups to help them grow more food, strengthen their gardens, and manage healthy, vibrant green spaces.

Provide organizing assistance and organizational assistance to dozens of groups to help them recruit new members, hold effective meetings, engage the community, organize events, and ensure the long term viability of their community gardens and their grassroots groups.

Serve as the fiscal sponsor for 20 community garden groups to help them obtain and manage grant funding that supports events, garden improvements, and outreach campaigns.

Help the Phoenix Community Gardeners on Fulton Street in Brooklyn continue to establish their large site as an urban farm, a community garden, and an outdoor educational center. See a slideshow.

Rally community members to revitalize up to 3 inactive community garden sites, including continued work at Shiloh Garden on Monroe Street.

Lead the Harvest for Neighborhoods Campaign: a comprehensive, coordinated campaign of organizing assistance, horticultural help, plant and material giveaways, and volunteer workdays to help 55 central Brooklyn community garden groups produce and distribute a healthy, bountiful harvest.

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our history & mission

Our history
In 1973 Liz Christy, a Lower East Side artist, gathered her friends and neighbors together to clean out a vacant lot on the corner of Bowery and Houston Streets. Calling themselves the Green Guerillas, these visionaries created a vibrant community garden and sparked the modern community gardening movement in New York City.
The Green Guerillas tapped the time, talent, and energy of their members. They took on projects as varied and interesting as the city itself - they threw seed “green-aids” over the fences of vacant lots, installed window boxes, planted flowers in tree pits – and helped people transform city-owned vacant lots into community gardens that serve as botanic gardens, vest pocket parks, urban farms, and as expressions of art, ecology, and culture.
More than three decades later, Green Guerillas is a vital 501c3 nonprofit organization, and there are 600 community gardens with a whole new host of challenges.

Our mission
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.

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         our first garden

Founded in 1973 by Liz Christy and the Green Guerillas, this is New York City’s original community garden. Maintained by a group of dedicated volunteers, the Liz Christy Garden serves as an inspiration to gardeners of all skill levels and as an urban oasis for residents of the Lower East Side and the East Village. The garden is a colorful stop for birds, bees, and tourists from every continent
The garden is located on the northeast corner of Bowery and Houston streets.The beauty of this urban green space can be enjoyed in every season, including winter during the weekly open hours.
To see the Liz Christy gardeners’ website

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         2010 Accomplishments

Organizing Plant Giveaways for Bountiful Harvests, Colorful Gardens

Green Guerillas organized three comprehensive plant giveaways for 170 Brooklyn, Bronx, and Manhattan community gardens that got gardeners a wide variety of vegetable seedlings, herbs, annuals, and seeds to help them boost their harvest and add splashes of color to New York City neighborhoods.

Adding People Power to the Mix

Our staff and interns:

• Organized community workdays to increase and improve growing areas at 14 gardens - A Better Community Garden, Abib Newborn, Bainbridge St. New Garden, First Quincy, Hancock T & T, Hattie Carthan, Hull St., Linden-Bushwick, New Age Pride, Phoenix Community Garden, Preston, T & T Vernon, United Herkimer, Vernon Throop.

• Helped gardeners organize community events to bring in more garden members and increase accessibility to local healthy food production at 16 gardens - 1100 Bergen, Abib Newborn, Bainbridge St. New Garden, Central Bainbridge, F.A.R.R., First Quincy, Garden of Plenty, Georgia Ave. Block Assoc., Hancock T & T, Hull St., New Garden on Jefferson, Phoenix Community Garden, Seasons of Vision, Shiloh, United Herkimer, Walt L. Shamel Garden.

• Targeted ongoing organizing efforts at 10 underutilized gardens - Abib Newborn, Boardwalk Garden, Farmers, Hancock T & T, Marcus Garvey Tenants Assoc., New Age Pride, Preston, Seasons of Vision, Shiloh, United Herkimer. Our staff and interns conducted ongoing community outreach, helped organize and facilitate meetings, worked with garden members to create membership agreements, and helped create appropriate signage and held open hours.

• Organized 3 meetings of the Central Brooklyn Gardeners Coalition. Helped gardeners connect with each other to share ideas and resources.

Helping Garden Groups Become Sustainable

Our executive director continued to lead efforts to help community garden groups identify funding sources, write proposals, engage in fundraising campaigns, and manage grant funds that garden leaders need to hold events, reach out to their neighbors, and make important garden improvements. We provided fundraising assistance and fiscal sponsor services to 20 community groups to help them raise and manage more than $50,000 in funding from the NYS Dept. of Ag & Markets, NYS DEC, Councilmember Robert Jackson, Councilmember Diana Reyna, Citizens Committee for NYC, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and the Brooklyn Community Foundation.

Helping Gardeners Grow Food & Fight Hunger

GGs used the Harvest for Neighborhoods (H4N) Campaign to:

• Expand access to fresh healthy produce in Brooklyn to help fight food insecurity and improve awareness of healthy food choices. Due to increased interest and need for assistance in urban food production, 90 community gardens participated this season – our staff and interns provided them with seedlings, soil, organizing assistance, and helped them organize workshops and events.

• Help community gardeners donate hundreds of pounds food to the Neighbors Together and St. John's Bread & Life soup kitchens.

• Cultivate the next generation of urban gardeners and farmers by engaging 10 local youth in summer urban agriculture internships and having 3 summer AmeriCorps work at the core of the H4N campaign. We also helped 3 gardens host youth environmental awareness days in their garden where over 100 young people participated in educational activities.

• Help garden groups be better rooted in their communities. We believe that the more connections gardens have in their communities they more sustainable they become. We helped garden groups connect better with each other through the Central Brooklyn Gardeners Coalition, with their own neighborhoods through increased community outreach and membership development and with local emergency food providers who are also working to fight hunger on a the local level.

Supporting Emerging Community Farmers Markets: Green Guerillas provided essential support to 2 community run farmers markets - Hattie Carthan Community Market and the Bushwick Farmers Market - and also helped start a new community market, the Wyckoff Farmers Market. Support included: fundraising and managing funds, outreach for the markets, staffing at market days, helping plant and tend market plots and helping to hold special events and workshops at the markets. Thousands of central Brooklyn residents now have access to fresh healthy foods in neighborhoods were there was previously minimal to no access.

COOL FOOD Campaign: Green Guerillas helped 40 garden groups understand season extension and access the supplies they needed to plant for multiple harvests in the same growing season. By learning about how to plant cool season crops gardeners were able to double their harvest out of the same planting boxes.

Helping the Phoenix Community Gardeners Engage the Community

GGs organizers and youth tillers helped the Phoenix community gardeners increase their harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables, and make important site improvements. We also helped them meet throughout the year, and conduct outreach to help establish their large site as an educational center.

Our staff and interns helped the Phoenix events committee organize more than a dozen events and workshops throughout the growing season. Workshops and events were publicized to the local community as well as all central Brooklyn garden groups.

Engaging Youth as Gardeners, Urban Farmers, and Artists

Youth Tillers: Green Guerillas helped 10 central Brooklyn high school students – the "youth tillers" - complete paid urban agriculture internships that challenged them to cultivate garden beds, build compost bins, organize events to educate other youth – and strengthen important food-growing community gardens.

Summer AmeriCorps: Three young adult interns worked at the core of the Harvest for Neighborhoods Campaign as they tended harvest beds, helped gardeners, led garden workdays, organized events, and helped garden groups recruit new urban farmers.

Youth-Powered Art: Our Youth Mural Project helped local youth paint 2 colorful murals at the ABC Garden in Bedford-Stuyvesant and at the Expeditionary School for Community Leaders in Bensonhurst and paint mini murals at the Phoenix Community Garden in Ocean Hill-Brownsville. Collectively, these community arts projects told important stories about food, community, and intergenerational harmony through the eyes of young people.

Youth-Powered Gardening: Our Youth Gardening Project put trowels, seeds, and seedlings in the hands of more than 200 children and youth to help them garden at 20 different volunteer workdays and children's gardening festivals.

Helping Community Gardeners Work on Critical Issues

The agreement between the City of New York and the NYS Attorney General that has protected community gardens for 7 years expired in 2010. The City published a set of rules governing community gardens that took a step back from preservation and created a review process for gardens that might be sold or developed. Green Guerillas reached out to gardeners to help them understand this issue and supported the efforts of the NYC Community Gardens Coalition to advocate for a new form of protection for community gardens.

Engaging Garden Stewards

Our annual meeting and annual benefit party again served as energetic, educational, and celebratory opportunities to inspire our members, supporters, and board of directors to support the work of community gardeners. White house chef, Bill Yosses, joined us for a spirited Fall Harvest meeting in September. GGs also helped gardeners in Harlem hold a walking tour of community gardens.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Our Work

Throughout the year Green Guerillas staff used formal and informal methods to monitor the effectiveness of our work and ensure that our programs were in line with the needs of community gardeners. We utilized meetings, phone interviews, and one-on-one discussions with garden leaders. Our board of directors closely monitors the organization's fiscal and programmatic efficacy.

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