Working to Grow & Strengthen Sharing Networks Amongst Urban Growers in NYC
The Challenge
NYC has over 20,000 volunteer growers stewarding more than 550 community gardens, NYCHA farms, school gardens, and commercial and non-for-profit farms. Limited financial, material, and tool resources are available to growers, often resulting in a culture of competition.
Despite these challenges, some growers make an effort to share tools, knowledge, and material surpluses. Share Shed NYC is the outcome; platform, tool, or space, of uncovering how best to support growers in their existing and expanding efforts to share resources.
Why Share Shed NYC?
Through informal networks and the support of existing organizations, many NYC growers already do their best to share tools, materials, and knowledge. As the growing season ebbs and flows, or financial resources and materials run dry, capacity to share does too.
This is where Share Shed NYC comes in. How might we build upon existing informal networks to sustain a sharing economy amongst NYC's diverse array of growers?
How We Build Share Shed
Our process is designed to be iterative and replicable, beginning in South Bronx gardens and extending to other communities across NYC eager to co-create sharing tools for greater resilience and success. Out of these interactions, we created a facilitation guide for community engagement to learn more about growers’ resource needs and preferred sharing platforms
Envisioning Share Shed
Ultimately, we envision Share Shed NYC to be a set of resource sharing platforms created in collaboration with urban growers that are accessible across cultures, languages, abilities, and economic statuses, supporting an ever growing network of growers, advocates, and related actors in NYC’s foodways toward greater empowerment and food sovereignty.
Want to help us build the Share Shed? Got Questions?
Are you an urban grower, community garden member, community organization, non-profit with resource to share…we want to hear from you
Email
shareshednyc@gmail.com