Rivoli Ready - Growing a Greener East Side

Urban Roots is about growth: teenagers growing their skills, communities growing their own food, cities growing communities. Right now, we have the opportunity to grow even more — with your help.

Imagine a little scrap of open space, tucked away in the hollows of a resilient neighborhood bordered by highways, with a view of nearby skyscrapers. A tiny square of hope on a huge, complicated quilt. Now imagine that little lush greenness transformed into fertile farmland, right in the heart of the city.

A farm that can:

• Put more fresh food onto more people’s plates – people right there in neighborhood
• Provide a living lab where youth interns can learn agricultural science and conservation
• Produce an outdoor classroom with Indigenous and culturally relevant plants for children, families, and community members.

Can one small piece of land do all that? It can — with Urban Roots!

Right now, Urban Roots needs your gift to increase the tillable acreage at Rivoli Bluffs Farm & Restoration Site. Our goal is to raise $20,000.

With your help, we can:

• Use Rivoli as the launch site for our new Mobile Market and refrigerated van. 
  • We can now accept SNAP/EBT benefits, reaching more residents with fresh, culturally relevant produce!
  • More farm-fresh produce means our Cook Fresh program can offer even more nutritional recipes and cooking demos.
• Provide our youth interns with an experimental plot where they can decide on new crops and determine best growing practices. 
  • Advanced interns will have incubator plots to apply their skills and ideas. 
• In partnership with our friends at Lower Phalen Creek Project, we will have a plot for planting an Indigenous Medicine garden and culturally relevant plants.
• Create an accessible outdoor classroom for K-12 students to investigate STEM topics like plant anatomy, pollinators, and climate change. Students will be able to discover, play, taste, and participate in garden work.