Case Study:

Urban Agriculture

2013-2020

Scope

Good Food Work's urban agriculture programming provided homeless and formerly-incarcerated participants of The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program with hands-on urban agricultural education and meaningful social engagement opportunities, as well as accessible therapeutic green space.

In 2013, Good Food Works installed its first garden on site at The Doe Fund’s Harlem Center for Opportunity in collaboration with The Horticultural Society of New York. In 2014, in collaboration with Feedback Farms, it expanded to a new garden at The Doe Fund’s Peter Jay Sharp Center for Opportunity in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In collaboration with Brooklyn Grange, Good Food Works also installed a rooftop at The Doe Fund”s Harlem site, introducing beekeeping workshops to trainees working in the Harlem garden.

Over the subsequent years, until the program wound down in 2020, Good Food Works expanded both sites and experimented with a number of program models, ranging from professional skill building in sustainable agriculture to social engagement with neighborhood residents, in an effort to identify the model best aligned with the mission and evolving programmatic priorities of Ready, Willing & Able.

Goals

Program goals evolved over the course of the project, based on learnings from its various iterations and strategic direction from RWA leadership, and included:

  • Job readiness development with a focus on soft skills such as timeliness, communication skills, and accountability

  • Food systems literacy with a focus on sustainable agriculture as an alternative to industrial agriculture

  • Life skills development with a focus on personal gardening and food production

  • Healthy food production, primarily for The Doe Fund’s internal food service operations

  • Personal health through access to green space and healthy eating strategies

Assessment

Key Strengths

  • Activation of existing underutilized TDF assets

  • Strong recreational and therapeutic impacts

Key Weaknesses

  • Limited pathways to stable, living-wage careers

  • Minimal programmatic scalability

More Projects

Pop-Up Bakery
(2014-2020)

Farm-to-Table Logistics
(2014-2020)

Mid-Hudson Food Hub
(2014-2018)

Salad Days
(2020-Present)