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Submit a workshop proposal for the 2025 National GrowTogether Conference:
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RFP for Thursday, June 5th and Friday, June 6th workshops
Submit workshop proposals that are geared towards community gardening and urban agriculture organizations. Learn more and fill out the form here. -
RFP for Saturday, June 7th
Submit workshop proposals promoting resilience and innovation in urban gardening and community building. They will be designed for community gardeners and should be engaging, educational, and actionable. Learn more and fill out the form here. -
RFP for Sunday, June 8th
We are seeking tour guides to submit urban gardening-related visit proposals to NYC Parks facilities, GreenThumb gardens, and organization facilities supporting GreenThumb. Learn more and fill out the form here.
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Submit your original design to the 2025 NYC Parks GreenThumb T-Shirt Design Contest based on the theme: Seeds of Resilience / Semillas de Resiliencia by Sunday, January 19, 2025. For submission guidelines, visit our website.





2025 National GrowTogether Conference: Planting Seeds
of Resilience
Presented by NYC Parks GreenThumb in partnership with the American Community Gardening Association, Urban Garden Project, and with support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

This year's GrowTogether Conference will feature a keynote address by Robin Wall Kimmerer on Saturday, June 7th.
Free registration is now open for the 2025 National GrowTogether Conference: Planting Seeds of Resilience, Thursday, June 5 - Sunday, June 8 at CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Ave. New York, NY 10016. This inspiring four-day gathering of community gardeners and leaders nationwide will celebrate the power of urban green spaces and community gardening in New York City. All activities are free and open to the public.
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Join us as we celebrate the resilience of our communities and cultivate a greener, healthier, and more connected future!
SAVE THE DATE:
When: Thursday June 5 - Sunday June 8, 2025
Where: CUNY Graduate Center, New York, NY
Photo credit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Conference Date and Times
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Thursday, June 5th from 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Workshops and panel discussions geared towards community gardening and urban agriculture organizations.
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Friday, June 6th from 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Workshops and panel discussions geared towards community gardening and urban agriculture organizations.
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Saturday, June 7th from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Workshops and panel discussions geared towards community gardeners and that promote resilience and innovation in urban gardening and community building.
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Sunday, June 8th – Off-site tours
Join us for guided tours at GreenThumb community gardens, NYC Parks facilities, and other interesting urban green spaces across New York City. Keep an eye out for details and ticket information.
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Stay tuned for schedule details!

We are honored to welcome Robin Wall Kimmerer
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals.
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In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth's oldest teachers: the plants around us. Robin's newest book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (November 2024), is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
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Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR's "On Being” with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of "Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
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As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.
