About Us Who We Are

1970

Mayor John Lindsay taps Marian Heiskell to establish the Mayor’s Council on the Environment, in response to New Yorkers’ concerns about quality of life in the city.

Today, GrowNYC is an independent environmental nonprofit, serving more than 3 million New Yorkers every year. Our programs encourage all New Yorkers to eat seasonal produce grown by small farmers, conserve resources, preserve green spaces, and take better care of our planet.

1975

GrowNYC builds its first community garden, All People’s Garden on East 3rd Street on the Lower East Side.

At the time, New York City had approximately 40 community gardens. These gardens were part of a grassroots movement to reclaim and beautify vacant lots and derelict spaces in the city, particularly in neighborhoods that had been neglected and were suffering from urban decay. The movement grew significantly in the following years, leading to the establishment of many more community gardens across the city.

NYC now has over 550 community gardens, 180+ built by GrowNYC! As a result, we’ve created over 1.3 million square feet of green space to the NYC landscape.

1976

GrowNYC’s first Greenmarket opens on 59th Street and 2nd Ave, reigniting the urban farmer’s market movement nationally. Farmers remember wondering if there was a food shortage in the city, as crowds rushed their tables for the fresh corn and tomatoes.

Today, GrowNYC operates the largest network of open-air farmers markets in the U.S. with 60+ Greenmarkets and Farmstands featuring more than 230 producers across the five boroughs.

1981

GrowNYC launched the Farm Survival Study to research why the New York region is losing farms and what can be done to prevent it.

Today, GrowNYC supports Greenmarket and Wholesale farmers each year with free technical assistance services such as marketing and legal assistance, to help them maintain profitable, secure businesses.

1988

GrowNYC successfully advocates to incorporate environmental education into the NYC Department of Education syllabus.

Environmental education was formally integrated into the New York City public school curriculum in the early 2000s. The establishment of environmental education as a key component of the curriculum was part of broader efforts to enhance environmental awareness and stewardship among students.

Today, GrowNYC’s hands-on education programs reach more than 360,000 youth and adults annually.

1989

We launch the Waste Prevention Recycling Service, designing recycling programs for companies like HBO and IBM.

Between 2011-2023, we partnered with the NYC Department of Sanitation to increase recycling and composting throughout the five boroughs, reaching hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers, in schools, apartment buildings, and households – proving New Yorkers were ready to compost. Collectively, we collected 20 million pounds of food scraps that were diverted for composting.

Today, New York City now has the largest residential food scrap collection program in the United States.

2002

Drought had decimated the NYC water supply from upstate reservoirs, and community gardens were being fined hundreds of dollars if they watered their plants. GrowNYC teamed up with community groups to research how to build rainwater harvesting systems and navigate unclear New York City Department of Environmental Protection regulations on water diversion. At the time, the only systems highlighted online were used on small tropical islands and by US cattle ranchers.

Today, there are more than 150 rainwater harvesting systems in New York City community gardens built by GrowNYC, collecting over 1.3 million gallons of water annually. Additionally, new large-scale NYC buildings are now required by law to divert rainwater into detention tanks to help the city manage combined sewage overflow during rainstorms.

2005-2008

In 2005, when food stamps went digital, GrowNYC bridged the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) technology divide by partnering with the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets to implement a pilot payment model at three Greenmarkets.

In 2008, funded by the NYC Human Resources Administration and in partnership with NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, GrowNYC’s Greenmarkets began distributing Health Bucks to incentivize shoppers using SNAP to purchase local food, the first program of its kind in the U.S. GrowNYC doubles the number of Greenmarkets accepting SNAP ensuring in perpetuity our commitment to food access and affordability.

Today, GrowNYC’s SNAP EBT redemption program is a national model, we now redeem more than $5.3 million in SNAP and other incentives at GrowNYC markets.

2009

GrowNYC ventured into wholesale by launching our market-style community Farmstands (formally known as Youthmarkets). Weekly Farmstands provided new opportunities for distributing regionally grown produce, supporting farmers, and offering fresh local food in food-insecure neighborhoods.

Today, GrowNYC Farmstands annually distribute over 250,000 lbs of locally-grown food to communities and 50% of all transactions use SNAP EBT to purchase produce.

2010

GrowNYC launches a citywide school gardens program, working to promote and facilitate the creation of sustainable gardens in every NYC school.

Today, GrowNYC haas supported over 1,000 school gardens–that’s more than half of all New York City public and charter schools.

2010

GrowNYC opens a Teaching Garden, located on Governors Island, and offers field trips to students. The one-acre urban farm is designed to educate the public about urban agriculture and sustainable practices to understand the importance of local food systems.

Today, this one acre sprawling garden serves as an interactive outdoor classroom where 7,000+ annual visitors and school groups engage in hands-on activities related to gardening, composting, and harvesting. We offer dozens of workshops, tours, and volunteer opportunities, promoting a connection between the city’s residents and the natural environment.

2014

The launch of GrowNYC Grainstand, a pop-up retail operation that aggregated and sold regional grains and beans at multiple Greenmarket locations. The Grainstand connected New York City consumers to dozens of regional grain producers, including mills and distilleries, representing crops from over 100 farms in the Northeast.

The project introduced over 80 new “non-commodity” ingredients to the New York City marketplace and reignited the grains movement statewide and across the U.S., where similar programs popped up in Maine, Texas, Oregon, and beyond. The GrowNYC Grains program came to a close in 2021 but the impact it has had continued to ripple regional grain economies across the United States.

Today, all bakeries selling at GrowNYC markets were required to use a minimum of 15% regional grains in all baked goods. GrowNYC also distributes over 60,00 pounds of regionally grown grain via GrowNYC’s Food Hub.

2019

Crossing the digital divide once again, GrowNYC launches a first in the country, Over the Counter (OTC) network at farmers markets. By partnering with the health insurance companies, GrowNYC’s Greenmarket sites began accepting OTC cards as a form of payment, increasing access to customers enrolled in medicaid to use their insurance benefits to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables.

Today, $500,000 in OTC benefits are redeemed at GrowNYC sites to purchase a variety of fresh and locally sourced fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat, cheeses, milk, and other healthy staple foods.

2020

During the height of the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, New York City tapped GrowNYC to assemble free Emergency Food Boxes to distribute across the city to the communities who needed them most. By 2021, GrowNYC distributed more than 1 Million boxes of regionally-grown food from Northeast farmers.

While the vast majority of farmers markets across the country closed, GrowNYC Greenmarkets remained open (closing for only one day) – establishing our market employees as essential workers. This became crucial when the industrial food distribution system struggled to deliver food safely into NYC.

2025

GrowNYC celebrates the opening of the New York State Regional Food Hub, expanding food access pathways and providing critical infrastructure for an alternative regional food system.