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Onika Abraham from Farm School NYC shares her passion for sustainable agriculture and food justice education in New York’s 5 Boroughs. I’m so excited to introduce my guest from http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (Farm School NYC ) Onika Abraham! Tell us a little about yourself. I reside here in beautiful Brooklyn NYC. I’m originally a New Yorker from the lower side Manhattan, if anyone is familiar with NYC accents, it’s obvious. Grew up in NYC from parents who grew up on farms, always loved visiting my grandparents seeing them grow what they eat and always inspiring to me!  I have come full circle by being the director of http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (Farm School NYC) Tell me about your first gardening experience? I have to say, I grew up on the lower east side on the 18th floor an apartment lucky to have a little terrace little concrete shelf does not sound like a bucolic farm but was definitely my first gardening experience My mother grew up on a mid size family farm in Alabama, when she moved here she brought her love and passion for growing things with her and she just recreated that in a little postage size terrace. I really grew up in pots and containers on my parent’s terrace had to be flowers house plants and all different flowers zinnias marigolds were some of her favorites I remember from when I was a kid!  Awwww that’s like the sweetest story. I didn’t really get to meet a lot of people from NYC proper, even tho my cousins lived on the Upper East Side, but we only saw them at Christmas and it’s fun to imagine, a little children’s book. Have you seen Sarah Stewart’s book https://amzn.to/2EY1K8b (The Gardener)?  https://amzn.to/2EY1K8b () http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (What is FARM SCHOOL NYC)? Is it for adults for kids? What kinds of classes do you have?   http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (FARM SCHOOL NYC is for)http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ ( adults) folks who are interested in learning how to grow sustainably sustainable organic practices people who want to use that knowledge base to address some of the inequities in our society resources health wellness  access to healthy food cultivate an awareness of how to grow food and collecting or make an impact on those health and wealth disparities bringing things together culturally See our work at http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (FARM SCHOOL NYC )as a way of  building community building justice through food cohort moving through our certificate program certificate in Urban Agriculture 20 courses in succession 20-30 people moving through that program at any given year Take a variety of courses at http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (FARM SCHOOL NYC) containers grounding in the methodology educate entire communities comes onto the farm one point of entry of a whole community of people who can learn with this person and share that knowledge come in start taking courses anyone over the age of 18 youngest student is about 20 maybe 21 oldest student is about 62 Cohort racially diverse culturally diverse age diverse gender diversity http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ () Did you tell us already? Is there an actual farm http://www.farmschoolnyc.org/ (FARM SCHOOL NYC)?? And if so where is that and how big? feed each other that’s the beauty we were originally created as a collective of farms things we have here at our fingertips and resources that we have and one thing NYC does not lack at all believe it or not is space to grow rooftop farms over 600 community gardens in NYC farming spaces because we were developed as a collective of groups, we didn’t want to create something else that would compete with that for resources to fund these projects or an alternate income that is required to make it happen didn’t want to create another resource to be maintained by this community access and feed and Support this podcast