United States Botanic Garden, Chicago Botanic Garden
& American Public Gardens Association
Award $50K to 7 public garden partnerships

Seven botanic gardens are receiving support to build capacity and leadership in urban agriculture through a partnership of the United States Botanic Garden (USBG), the American Public Gardens Association (Association), and Chicago Botanic Garden (CBG). The Urban Agriculture Resilience Program Capstone program will award each garden $50,000 along with one-on-one mentoring support to sustain and institutionalize each garden’s urban agriculture work. Additionally, the group will meet quarterly as a cohort for training throughout 2023, including a two-day, in-person training at CBG’s Windy City Harvest program.

Recipients of the Capstone awards are listed below:

  • Atlanta Botanical Garden, Georgia
  • Desert Botanical Garden, Arizona
  • Garfield Park Conservatory and Gardens, Illinois
  • Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Minnesota
  • Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Pennsylvania
  • Queens Botanical Garden, New York
  • University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Garden and Nichols Arboretum, Michigan

“We are happy to expand the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program with these capstone awards, piloting a new component focused on growing urban agriculture capacity and leadership in the public garden community,” said Dr. Susan K. Pell, USBG executive director. “We look forward to seeing even greater community impacts from these gardens through urban agriculture education, engagement, and food growing.”

“The Association is honored to continue our partnership with USBG and CBG through the Urban Agriculture Resilience Program,” said Michelle Provaznik, CEO of the American Public Gardens Association. “We are excited to see the long-term impacts of these capacity building awards on our member gardens and the important work they do for their communities.”

“We are excited to collaborate with USBG and the Association to support the recipients of the Capstone awards,” said Kelly Larsen, Associate Vice President of Community Engagement for Windy City Harvest, Chicago Botanic Garden. “It is critical that public gardens continue taking the lead to support place-based, collaborative urban agriculture solutions that grow the next generation of farmers and food system leaders. Urban agriculture programming focused on partnerships, provides accessible job training opportunities for local communities to grow equitable food access, employment opportunities, community health, and local food system economies.”

The Urban Agriculture Resilience Program began in 2020 as a way for the USBG and the Association to assist public gardens to continue urban agriculture and g programs facing funding and capacity challenges due to COVID-19. The program was expanded in 2021 and 2022 to support community engagement in urban agriculture education and food growing through collaborations between public gardens and local community organizations. Since its inception, the program has provided financial awards to 80 urban agriculture projects in 30 states and Washington, D.C.

The USBG and CBG have collaborated for five years to build capacity in urban agriculture at public gardens and partner organizations through development of an Urban Agriculture Toolkit and related training both online and in person around the country.

Learn more about previous awardees at www.USBG.gov/UrbanAg.