Farm at Bartram's Garden Transition
Donation protected
Dear friends,
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Farm at Bartram’s Garden as a neighborhood-based program to support food sovereignty and youth training efforts in the Southwest Philadelphia community. Since its founding in 2012 as the Community Farm and Food Resource Center, the Farm has always been a hub for learning, sharing, and growth—not to mention delicious food! This new chapter promises to be an exciting opportunity for the Farm, and we look forward to sharing this journey with you. Join in the adventure by making a gift today.
Last season, powered by 22 paid local high school interns, we produced over 12,000 pounds of food, worked alongside 45 Southwest families in the community garden, provided hands-on education for more than 9,000 schoolchildren through Bartram’s Garden programming, distributed over 80,000 vegetable transplants through the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) City Harvest program for more than 130 farms and gardens around Philadelphia, hosted over 1,500 volunteers, and held 50 affordable weekly farmstands. We are grateful for the support and investment of our partners at the University of Pennsylvania Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Philadelphia Orchard Project, and the City of Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Department in establishing the Farm as well as in achieving these milestones over the last five years.
Agriculture was a vital part of life at the Bartram homestead in colonial times, and today the Farm provides many valuable opportunities for reconnecting with and building upon this important legacy. The Farm’s mission includes hands-on opportunities for community members and youth to grow, preserve, and prepare their own food. These efforts range from sharing seedlings to providing community garden plots and tools to hosting cooking and food preparation workshops. We believe in the importance of lifelong learning and mentorship, and the Farm programming includes a special focus on providing our youth with practical skills and helping them develop lifelong habits for good health and self-sufficiency.
We enter this new chapter with excitement and ready to dig in further! We envision expanding and deepening our work in food sovereignty, youth empowerment, and community outreach. We seek to
· develop local and national models that provide tools for organizing for food sovereignty;
· mentor and empower young people from our community;
· support and connect with elders;
· nurture culturally engaged community gardening;
· and, of course, increase access to fresh, organic, nutritious food in the historically undeserved parts of our neighborhood.
To achieve these goals, we need your support. We are very excited to see the Farm continue to grow, and in order to expand our current programming, we need to raise $30,000 within the next three months. We hope that you will join our many dedicated partners in making this opportunity possible: please use this secure server to make your tax-deductible gift now. You can learn more about our values and impact—and get a behind-the-scenes view—through the video above.
We sincerely appreciate your support of the Farm and look forward to working with you as we continue to grow. Thank you for considering this request, and stay tuned for the launch of our monthly newsletter in July!
With gratitude,
Chris Bolden-Newsome
Co-Director
Farm at Bartram's Garden
Ty Holmberg
Co-Director
Farm at Bartram's Garden
Maitreyi Roy
Executive Director
Bartram's Garden
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Farm at Bartram’s Garden as a neighborhood-based program to support food sovereignty and youth training efforts in the Southwest Philadelphia community. Since its founding in 2012 as the Community Farm and Food Resource Center, the Farm has always been a hub for learning, sharing, and growth—not to mention delicious food! This new chapter promises to be an exciting opportunity for the Farm, and we look forward to sharing this journey with you. Join in the adventure by making a gift today.
Last season, powered by 22 paid local high school interns, we produced over 12,000 pounds of food, worked alongside 45 Southwest families in the community garden, provided hands-on education for more than 9,000 schoolchildren through Bartram’s Garden programming, distributed over 80,000 vegetable transplants through the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) City Harvest program for more than 130 farms and gardens around Philadelphia, hosted over 1,500 volunteers, and held 50 affordable weekly farmstands. We are grateful for the support and investment of our partners at the University of Pennsylvania Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the Philadelphia Orchard Project, and the City of Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Department in establishing the Farm as well as in achieving these milestones over the last five years.
Agriculture was a vital part of life at the Bartram homestead in colonial times, and today the Farm provides many valuable opportunities for reconnecting with and building upon this important legacy. The Farm’s mission includes hands-on opportunities for community members and youth to grow, preserve, and prepare their own food. These efforts range from sharing seedlings to providing community garden plots and tools to hosting cooking and food preparation workshops. We believe in the importance of lifelong learning and mentorship, and the Farm programming includes a special focus on providing our youth with practical skills and helping them develop lifelong habits for good health and self-sufficiency.
We enter this new chapter with excitement and ready to dig in further! We envision expanding and deepening our work in food sovereignty, youth empowerment, and community outreach. We seek to
· develop local and national models that provide tools for organizing for food sovereignty;
· mentor and empower young people from our community;
· support and connect with elders;
· nurture culturally engaged community gardening;
· and, of course, increase access to fresh, organic, nutritious food in the historically undeserved parts of our neighborhood.
To achieve these goals, we need your support. We are very excited to see the Farm continue to grow, and in order to expand our current programming, we need to raise $30,000 within the next three months. We hope that you will join our many dedicated partners in making this opportunity possible: please use this secure server to make your tax-deductible gift now. You can learn more about our values and impact—and get a behind-the-scenes view—through the video above.
We sincerely appreciate your support of the Farm and look forward to working with you as we continue to grow. Thank you for considering this request, and stay tuned for the launch of our monthly newsletter in July!
With gratitude,
Chris Bolden-Newsome
Co-Director
Farm at Bartram's Garden
Ty Holmberg
Co-Director
Farm at Bartram's Garden
Maitreyi Roy
Executive Director
Bartram's Garden
Organizer
Ty Holmberg
Organizer
Philadelphia, PA