Category — Funding

Chinese Chestnut (Castanea Mollissima).

Tree Canada: Planting Fruit & Nut Trees for the Community

All applications must be received by February 28, 2012.
Final Reports and projects must be completed by September 30, 2012.

The purpose of the Edible Trees program is to offer funding of up to $4,000 and other resources for community-based projects that provide residents with access to fresh fruit and nut trees while making a positive difference to the Canadian environment including:

Provide shade
Absorb and deflect solar radiation
Improve air quality
Absorb and filter water
Create habitat for wildlife

Funding is available, but not limited to, community gardening groups, community housing projects, schools, parks and arboretums.

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Christina Mwinjipe inspects her cassava crop (Mapinga Village, Tanzania, 2012).

“My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.” Bill Gates

For Christina and other small farmers—and for hundreds of millions of extremely poor people living in slums in big cities—getting food is the most pressing daily concern. And food is strongly connected to another constant worry: basic health. The lack of adequate nutrition is a key reason why poor children so often die of diseases like diarrhea that richer and better-fed children are able to fight off. Poor nutrition in childhood also prevents the development of both the brain and the body, severely and irreversibly limiting children’s ability to grow, learn, and become healthy, productive adults. Ultimately, there is very little in Christina’s life—or her children’s lives—that doesn’t depend on her cassava crop.

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Livia Marqués and Juanita Ewell stand in front of the tool shed at Eat Healthy Live Healthy Urban Garden in the 900 block of Cherry Hill Road, Baltimore City, Maryland. The mural was painted by Towson University student John Rice.

USDA Expands People’s Garden Initiative to Sow Seeds for Community-Based Agriculture across the Country

News Release – USDA
Washington Nov 10, 2011

Projects were funded in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan and Ohio. Grants were awarded to:

Homer Soil and Water Conservation District, Alaska, $110,500
Arizona Board of Regents, University of Arizona, Arizona, $5,000
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, California, $29,000
Denver Urban Gardens, Colorado, $70,000
Knox Parks, Inc., Connecticut, $50,000
Heritage Ranch, Inc., Hawaii, $110,500
Alliance for Community Trees, Inc., Maryland, $150,000
Towson University, Maryland, $60,000
Calhoun Conservation District, Michigan, $70,000
Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corporation, Ohio, $70,000

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Breaking New Ground

By Nevin Cohen And Kubi Ackerman
New York Times (Mark Bittman)
November 21,

Excerpts:

New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) recently funded three new urban agriculture projects: a rooftop garden at a settlement house, a vegetable garden near the Gowanus Canal and a commercial rooftop farm atop a Brooklyn Navy Yard building. These projects are part of an innovative green infrastructure program to turn impervious roofs, vacant lots and streets into spaces that soak up the rain and prevent water pollution. Supporting urban farms and gardens as a means of keeping our waterways clean is an excellent idea, and should be dramatically scaled up.

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Garden Grant Application Available Online, Due Dec. 23, 2011

Press Release
Oct. 25, 2011

Burpee Home Gardens(R) is now accepting applications for the 2012 “I Can Grow” Youth Garden Award. In its third year, the “I Can Grow” program continues to support urban school and community gardens in cities across the United States. To date, the “I Can Grow” program has provided more than 8,000 vegetable and herb plants to help create 16 gardens nationwide.

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Volunteers at farm.

The Butler Campus Farm (established in 2010) will serve as the city’s pilot urban farming “Hub.”

Mary Ellen Stephenson
Butler University
July 29, 2011

Butler’s Center for Urban Ecology (CUE) has received a $230,000 grant from The Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, to strengthen urban farming and renewal efforts in Indianapolis. The CUE grant was the largest individual award from a total $1.2 million in grants announced on July 27 and given to 17 Indiana nonprofit organizations.

Payable over three years, the grant also represents the largest gift Butler University has ever received from The Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

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Will Allen, the Mayor Tom Barrett, Susie Firebaugh Falk, and the Wal-mart Foundation. Sept. 11, 2011

“Tainted” dollars?

By Michele Simon
Grist
Sept. 19, 2011

Excerpt:

Last week, retail behemoth Walmart announced a $1.01 million donation to Milwaukee-based Growing Power, a well-known urban farming nonprofit, whose founder Will Allen has gained many accolades for his hard work to bring local, healthy food to low-income areas.

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“Urban farms and gardens are feeding the world – one inner city at a time”

Submission deadline: September 30, 2011

Nature’s Path is giving $65,000 in urban garden grants this year through its Gardens for Good contest. North American non-profits and registered charities are eligible to apply ( 2 winners to be crowned in the US and 1 in Canada) and anyone can vote. With the grant comes technical assistance for their Organic Program Manager, Dag Falck and the team at Organic Gardening Magazine.

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Whole Kids Foundation™ Taking Root With School Garden Grant Program – To be considered, applications must be received by 5pm CST, December 31, 2011.

AUSTIN, Texas. (Aug. 17, 2011) — Whole Kids Foundation in partnership with FoodCorps is now accepting online grant applications for its first major initiative, the School Garden Grant Program, which will be funded by a six-week, in-store donation drive at all Whole Foods Market stores, and online at wholekidsfoundation.org, from Aug. 17 to Sept. 30.

Created to help schools grow students’ relationships with food through gardening, the new program stems from the nonprofit’s mission of supporting schools’ efforts to improve children’s nutrition.

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Doris Duke (1912 – 1993) was an American heiress, horticulturalist, art collector, and philanthropist.

New Land Grant for Urban Living

By Melanie Grayce West
Wall Street Journal
March 15, 2011

Excerpt:

Developing a plan for the future of urban farms in New York City is the focus of the Five Borough Farm project through the New York nonprofit Design Trust for Public Space.

The organization was recently awarded $90,000 from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to work with organizations throughout the city to develop a map, quantify the many benefits of urban agriculture and develop a set of recommendations on how the city should support urban agriculture activity.

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“We’re getting some really smart people to help us as we move our urban agriculture system to the next level”

By Karen Herzog
Journal Sentinel
March 9, 2011

Excerpt:

IBM will announce Wednesday that Milwaukee is among 24 cities worldwide to receive a Smarter Cities Challenge grant, which will give the city access to top IBM experts and technology to potentially expand local, cutting-edge urban agriculture efforts around the globe.

The IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grants, valued at about $400,000 apiece, are aimed at helping cities improve one aspect of city life. Issues addressed by winning cities include health care, education, safety, social services, transportation, communications, sustainability, budget management, energy and utilities.

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Applications for the United Way of New York City’s Seed Grant Fund due November 24th!

For 2010-2011, Seed Grant funds are targeted at urban farming initiatives in New York City. Funding can be used to transform unused or “under-used” land to vital, food-producing spaces or to expand an existing urban farm. In either case, the urban farming initiative fit within the applicant’s general scope of community services and assist in the expansion of community outreach services related to nutrition education and wellness. In the project proposal, applicants must clearly explain how an urban farm fits within their scope of work and how this funding will directly benefit the intended target population.

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Image from Fast Company.

Throughout September’s Organic Harvest Month Bonterra Engages Individuals to Raise Awareness and Funds for Sustainable and Urban Farming throughout the US

LOUISVILLE, Ky., Sep. 13 /CSRwire/ – As one of the world’s leading producers of wine made from organically grown grapes, Bonterra is partnering with Growing Power, an organization focused on providing communities with healthy foods, to raise awareness and funds for urban farming. The partnership begins with an online fundraising campaign where Bonterra will donate $20,000 to local urban farming organizations in as many as 10 cities with the goal of turning this investment into $100,000 during organic harvest month.

To kick-off its year-long partnership, Bonterra and Growing Power are joining forces to promote urban farming in communities across the country via the Campaign for Urban Farming. Wine lovers and urban farming fans can help their local farms fund critical projects by donating to the four-week fundraising campaign, powered by Global Giving (www.globalgiving.org). $20,000 in prizes will be awarded to the local community farms that raise the most dollars and also engage the most individual donors.

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Ethiopia. Photo by treesftf. See larger image here.

By Menberu Kitila
Ethiopia, Jimma – University
Email: kitilamenberu@yahoo.com.uk

Currently I am working as the head of the environmental protection and urban agriculture office in Jimma city in Ethiopia. Jimma city is 350 km. from the capital city of the country (Addis Ababa).

Also, I am a student(Msc.) of Horticulture (vegetable crop production) in Jimma University College of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine (JUCAVM).
My thesis research also deals with the UA activities (specifically tomato production) in the Jimma area.

Jimma city is one of the biggest cities found in the country and, more than 200,000 people are living here. It is the place where Coffee Arabica originated.

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$100,000 gift helps feed needy – Grant to WSU nourishes urban gardens, other food resources

Darren A. Nichols, The Detroit News
October 17, 2008

Efforts to feed the needy in Detroit with locally grown produce got a $100,000 boost on Thursday from a Ford Motor Company grant.

Wayne State University officials said the money will support the school’s Sustainable Food Systems and Engagement in Detroit (SEED) program. It will aid ongoing efforts to establish urban gardens and other sustainable food resources at Wayne State and throughout Detroit.

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Heifer International based in Little Rock, Arkansas, funds many urban agriculture projects. I counted 22 including: Revision House Urban Agriculture Project, Dorchester, MA; East New York Farms! Brooklyn, NY; The City Farms, New York, NY; God’s Gang Planting Dreams Fish and Worm Project Chicago, IL; Growing Home Urban Farm, Chicago, IL; Somali Bantu Refugee Food Security, Training and Community Building Project, Portland, OR; and Birmingham Urban Gardening Society Community and School Garden Project, Birmingham, AL.

“From rooftops to vacant lots, Heifer International’s Urban Agriculture program is growing goodness, changing lives and building communities in the heart of North America’s big cities. Heifer supports grassroots organizations that help communities reclaim and support local food systems.”  

See Heifer’s urban agriculture projects here.

They also produced a 42-minute video documentary on urban agriculture, titled “Seeds, Hope & Concrete.”

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