Urban GreenWorks, Inc.

Urban GreenWorks (UGW) over the past decade have had quantitative and qualitative positive impacts on the community of South Florida. The Elevate Prize will support continuation and expansion of our programs and projects, continuing to push forward our local, regional, and global impact.

In 2010, UGW started with the mission of restoring the economic, physical, and social health of under-served communities. We started with 3 programs: Youth Bike, Breaking Ground, & Hammocks in Da Hood. Our connections to the prison system kept us strongly in “the cradle to prison pipeline”. 

Youth stewards learned how to design and conduct a community needs assessment, accompanied by a GPS map of all food places in our community. Community health, food security, and environmental restoration became our calling cards.

Over the last decade, UGW has been instrumental in introducing farmers market legislation into the City by-laws; co-founded the South Florida Food Policy Council; started a nationally recognized horticulture therapy program for abused women; and became immersed in soil remediation.

In 2019, Roger Horne defined the principles of Whole Measures, Planetary Health, Food Security, Social Responsibility, and Technology, as the core tenets that guide our mission, after taking over leadership.

Through strategic partnerships, UGW: is working with minority farmers to create regional growing collectives; is offering vegan, organic soils & community composting; introduced F.R.U.I.T. to increase food security & reduce food waste; introduced Participatory Budgeting to residents; and is prototyping a Recirculating Agriculture System for urbanized areas.

Health, education and social justice issues negatively impact the communities we serve, and disproportionately so in comparison to the surrounding communities. Miami District 5 residents face growing climate change gentrification, as in Richmond, VA; Kenya is 80-85% arid; Haiti is Haiti; and SVG is just recovering from a volcanic scare.

These communities are striving for social and economic parity while relearning how to live sustainable lives.

In 2020, we decided to branch out beyond Florida, which organically created renewed interest in past projects & programs. We started in Richmond, VA -  the largest food desert per city size in the U.S.

Our continued support of an LGBTQ dance troupe in Jakmel, Haiti, lead to us connecting with an orphanage in Port Salud, Haiti.

A partnership with ProTech EcoGreen, in Kenya, was formalized. We were able to assist our partner in obtaining a micro-grant from the Center for Nutritional Studies. Yet there is still lots to do, as farmers across the globe are “farming soil that lacks soil fertility”.

UGW will exclusively farm 1.5 acres of rooftop space in the heart of Miami, over the next 3 years. 

As UGW moves into our next decade, we are powered by F.R.U.I.T. 

In 2019, UGW experienced severe reductions to our operational and programmatic budgets. To offset this deficit, UGW refocused operations on monetarizing our works and outputs through increased collaborations with for-profit partners innovating soil regeneration techniques and developing affordable & adaptable, urban vertical farming models.

Our partnership with Studio James Brazil has opened UGW up to the innovations of urban design and its impact on agribusinesses, using technology. UGW is now being powered by F.R.U.I.T. (Food Resilience Urban Infrastructure Tools), which allows us to aggregate our knowledge and data, and look to bio-ecology, soil regeneration, and alternative farming practices to improve food security and reduce food waste.

What makes our work unique and disruptive is that UGW is constantly developing, nurturing, implementing, and incorporating (through partnerships) the core elements of our 360 GreenPrint that outlines a community vision of what is required to create food security communities – locally, regionally, and globally.

That vision includes a focus towards revitalizing our collective appreciation for resilient agriculture; restoring our environment through agriculture that regenerates our soil, water, an air; investing in the next generation of agricultural stewards and systems; and strengthening the social and economic fabric of global communities through agriculture.

UGW is having an impact on humanity because of our continued service, targeted to the immediate needs of the local community. We are grassroots, with direct contact to those we serve. We work with communities in addressing the social determinants of health that retards community development and progress.

UGW started in 2010 with the intent of regenerating interest and action in revitalizing and preserving our natural ecosystem, by removing lawns and replacing them with natural ecoscapes.

Fast forward to 2020, UGW is now Global, supporting farmers and communities in Kenya, Ghana, Haiti, SVG, and Richmond, VA. Our brand is known for what it does best – answering the call!

In the coming years, we will continue to work to encourage community collaborative action and support of a younger, more diverse cadre of future, minority leaders.

UGW will continue to work collaboratively with local entities, as an advocate for the residents who cannot navigate the complex pathways to regulatory change. 

UGW staff is most proud of the youth we continue to see 10 years later - gainfully employed, in college, self-employed, or serving as change makers. Youth were written off to the streets and jail. This is UGWs greatest impact!