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Old Richmond Neighborhood - Philadelphia, Pa
Greensgrow Urban Farm
Land, Community, Culture, Food ↓
Greensgrow Urban Farm || March 2018 - June 2021
I knew the people who started this organization over the years. Mary Seton Corboy was the brain child of the farm and her dear friend, Ryan Kuck, worked with her for a decade to build it into what it became. I held them in my community for much of the time that Greensgrow Farms was at its height of growth.
In 2018, I joined as a Strategic Business Manager and shifted into the Executive Director role late in that year to help build a rebrand, programming and spatial layout to the on of the oldest urban farms that is nationally known.
I used my skills as a designer, communicator and organizational leader to reshape the organization in community connection and physical infrastructure.
See all the collaborations and communications I engaged in below ↓ ↓ ↓
Farm Dinners and Twilight Markets that supported local artists, farmers, and crafts people in production while raising money to create a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) that was able to supply to people who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
These events also lifted new people in the food, music or craft based worlds across the city including: Philly Foodworks, Musi BYOB, Ecklectik Domestic, V. Shane Fredrick Jazz Ensamble, The Farm at Doe Run, Goat Rodeo Farm & Dairy, Blind Tiger Coffee, Triple Bottom Brewing, Sepratist Beer and many more.
Mary Kate McDevitt - Illustrator || 2019
Tim Gough - Illustrator || 2019
Mary Kate McDevitt - Illustrator || 2019
Native Plant Garden Design this resource was a soil, insect, and food pollinator habitat that would better facilitate the environmental nature of this place. This space was built in collaboration with Good Host Plants and created educational panels, planting sessions with local native plant leaders as well as facilitated a new feeling within the edge of this urban farm by looking at created ecosystems.
As a communications and design facilitator, I was able to reconnect the 30 year old urban farm project that was known well through Mary Seton Corboy who started this organization, into a connective place when I put myself in the media and made time to connect with the community on site when they came in to buy plants. On land there is the need for connection with people and I found myself in this executive director role taking on many interview, speaking and video based engagements with people in the media who were thinking more about the importance of this land, as the city was starting to grow and the Covid-19 pandemic to shift people’s desire for land based knowledge.
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Greensgrow Vision with Meg
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Greensgrow Vision with Meg
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The Philadelphia Inquirer- Meg De Brito interviewed on volunteering
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Tech To The Rescue - Meg De Brito on NPR - radio + article
Education Programs between 2018 and 2021 there was a build out of a few tiers of education programs from young adults, to college students from Drexel University and Bryn Mawr who operated through paid farm internship and on site learning, alongside day programs and summer programs built for high-school students with Greener Partners. All three of these programs developed growth of primary education models for the organization to help grow these important skill sets among multiple ages and interests.
Meg De Brito engaged as an advisor of four college students in the Bi-Co Environmental Studies Department with Sara J. Grossman, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at Bryn Mawr College, to create a direct their navigation of making a booklet for high school educational study activities through thinking and making.
Greensgrow built programming with Greener Partners to work with many high school students from North Philadelphia on managing growing and food sales on a farm.
Greensgrow worked with Studio Ludo to create an environmental adventure box when many were stuck in their homes with kids, during the early 2020 pandemic
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Seedkeeping Fellows studying with Amirah Mitchell who now runs Sistah Seeds
Seed Keeping Fellows Program facilitated education with10 local people from different cultural backgrounds who wanted to learn about seeds from their families’ heritage. During this time Truelove Seeds was sharing its office and greenhouse space at Greensgrow and this fellowship program was run by Amirah Mitchell of Sistah Seeds. An application process was reviewed and leading thinkers were brought together to develop this cultural opportunity for learning and growing our heritage within our land.
Land of Plenty run by Jackie Riccio facilitated artwork that reframed the beauty of seeds, environment, culture and plant varieties.
Watch the final outcomes of the Seedkeeping Fellow Program >>