Capital Roots
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Mission Statement
Capital Roots works to reduce the impact of poor nutrition on public health in New York’s Capital Region by organizing community gardens, providing healthy food access, offering nutritional and horticultural education for all ages and coordinating urban greening programs in Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady and southern Saratoga Counties. Our mission is 'to nourish healthy communities by providing access to fresh food and green spaces for all.'
About This Cause
Since 1975, Capital Roots (formerly Capital District Community Gardens) has been helping underserved, low-income, minority and senior residents of New York's Capital Region (Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Saratoga Counties) improve their neighborhoods, individual health and wellbeing through community gardening, healthy food access and urban greening. Based in Troy, NY, the organization started as a community service project of Garden Way, the former manufacturer of Troy-Bilt lawn and garden equipment. Originally, Capital Roots' mission was to improve the daily lives of Capital Region urbanites by offering access to community gardens and beautifying inner-city areas through landscaping and street tree plantings. Our community gardens remain central to Capital Roots, but our mission and programs have evolved and expanded with the times. Not everyone will be able to use a community garden, but we believe that everyone should have access to fresh food and green spaces as a means of nourishing healthier communities. We achieve our mission through a slate of innovative food access and nutrition education programs, including: Community Gardens: We operate 52 neighborhood gardens, mostly in low-income neighborhoods, throughout Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady, and Saratoga counties. More than 4,000 people grow their own organic produce in these gardens, supplementing the nutritional content of their diets, building community, and providing green space in mostly high-density urban areas. The Veggie Mobile & Veggie Sprout: Our mobile produce markets, "produce aisles on wheels", bring low-cost produce to urban neighborhoods in the region without easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Staff on the mobile markets expose shoppers to new fruits and vegetables through tastings of simple healthy recipes and provide guidance on eating a more healthful diet. Customers can use food stamps and farmers' market coupons on board the markets. Thirty-six weekly stops serve housing developments, senior and community centers with more than 140 tons of affordable produce annually. Veggie Rx: In this collaboration with Albany's Whitney Young Health Center, doctors are able to provide patients with lifestyle related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes with weekly coupons to buy produce on The Veggie Mobile, which stops at Whitney Young once a week. Health indicators such as blood pressure, hemoglobin A1C, and BMI are tracked, and public health faculty at the University of Albany are currently preparing to publish the results of their research, which show substantial improvements in the overall health of participants in the program. The Virtual Veggie Mobile: As part of our goal to nourish healthy communities, we seek to build connections between urban neighborhoods and the agricultural communities that surround our cities. Our new online marketplace allows us to connect local farmers with inner city residents and organizations such as child care centers. Farmers can post their available produce and products weekly, and individual/institutional customers are able to place their orders directly online. Farm produce ordered online can be picked up at community service organization in Albany and Troy, strengthening the capacity of local farmers and allowing urban residents more flexibility and options to purchase and buy local produce regularly. Squash Hunger: This "produce recovery" program relies on volunteers to collect donations from gardeners, farmers, and consumers and bring them to emergency feeding programs such as food pantries, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens. Volunteers collect more than 70,000 pounds of produce annually from donation bins at grocery stores, farmers markets, and farm field gleanings, and deliver it to emergency feeding sites, providing the neediest in our community with access to healthy food. Healthy Stores: In partnership with store owners, Capital Roots provides produce vending units to inner-city convenience stores where access to fresh produce is limited. Residents can access affordable fresh produce where they shop every day. More than 22 tons of produce are sold annually through our 20 healthy stores. The Taste Good Series: Developing healthy eating habits starts young. Our Taste Good classes helps more than 2,000 children in grades PreK-2 discover that fruits and veggies do indeed taste good. Our educator works with elementary school teachers over six weeks to expose kids to new fruits and vegetables through tastings, and to teach basic nutrition and plant science information through lively lessons complete with songs, games, and stories. Street Tree Plantings: Each spring and fall, Capital Roots works with local governments and community groups to plant hundreds of trees on city streets throughout the area. Over the past decade, our tree planting program has put more than 3,000 trees on urban streets, greening neighborhoods, improving air quality, and increasing property values. The Produce Project: The Produce Project is our youth jobs training program. At-risk teens from a local high school work on our two acre year-round organic farm. Students learn how to grow, harvest and market their own produce -- and acquire valuable job skills along the way. By selling their crops to local restaurants and at farmers markets, students learn entrepreneurial skills, earn a stipend and school credit, and take a share of what they grow home to their families. Produce Project staff work with students to improve school attendance, increase graduation rates, and plan for work or post-secondary education. Many program participants who were at risk of dropping out of high school have graduated and transitioned successfully into work or college. The Urban Grow Center: In December of 2014, Capital Roots moved into the Urban Grow Center, our new home for our offices and programs. Located in North-Central Troy, an impoverished inner-city community, this renovated 100 year-old building includes an onsite produce market, a dedicated volunteer center and gardener education room, and expanded food hub facilities including loading docks and bays, additional refrigeration and produce processing areas. The Grow Center will allow us to double the amount of fresh, low cost produce made available to urban residents throughout the region. Together, these programs serve more than 175,000 individuals and their families annually, nourishing healthy communities through fresh food access, education, and greener cities.