Farm for the City: Growing for Greater Good

Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s (PHS) Farm for the City: Growing for Greater Good transformed center city Philadelphia’s Thomas Paine Plaza into a temporary “farm-as-art installation” to encourage public conversations about the role of urban agriculture in strengthening communities. Demonstrating to visitors that, as PHS says, “gardens are places where people come together,” the project offered gardening workshops, large-scale community dinners, and poetry and storytelling performances, along with interactive panel discussions organized around the themes of food access and community revitalization. Over the course of four months, the farm’s raised bed gardens grew more than 1,200 pounds of produce, which was donated to Broad Street Ministry, a nearby community service organization dedicated to serving the homeless. The project also enabled PHS to develop an apprenticeship model to cultivate emerging community and civic leaders who will continue the momentum sparked by Farm for the City.

Additional unrestricted funds are added to each grant for general operating support.