MISSION & VISION
Keep Growing Detroit’s mission is to promote a food sovereign city where the majority of fruits and vegetables consumed by Detroiters are grown by residents within the city’s limits. Our strategic approach to achieving our mission facilitates beginner gardeners becoming engaged community leaders and food entrepreneurs, addressing the immediate needs of the community while promoting sustainable change in our food system. To these ends, KGD operates a number of nationally recognized programs including the Garden Resource Program (GRP), which supports a network of more than 1,900 urban gardens and farms in the city and Grown in Detroit (GID), which provides urban growers with low-barrier opportunities to sell the fruits and vegetables they grow at local market outlets. KGD also operates a 1.5-acre urban farm and teaching facility located in Detroit’s historic Eastern Market District.
KGD’s vision is that there are places to grow food in every neighborhood in Detroit and that these places are scaled so they can be integrated into the fabric of the surrounding area and help maximize community and economic development opportunities that benefit residents.
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Learn more about Keep Growing Detroit and the need for food security in this story.
Keep Growing Detroit Team
Ashley Atkinson
Co-Director at Keep Growing Detroit, has worked in the field of community gardening, urban greening, and vacant land reuse for more than 20 years. Her career began in her hometown, Flint, Michigan, where she co-founded the Flint Urban Gardening and Land Use Corporation and developed the Clean and Green program for the Genesee County Land Bank.
Imani Foster
is the Farmers’ Market Coordinator at KGD. She has been on the fringes of outdoor education, conservation service, and vacant lot reclamation for the last 7 years.
Lola Kristi Gibson-Berg
I’m a paragraph. Double click me or click Edit is the Community Education Coordinator at Keep Growing Detroit. She became a member of the Garden Resource Program when she graduated from KGD’s Urban Roots Program in 2015.
Audrina D
Creative Branding Specialist
Audrina D is passionate about all things wellness and nature. She has turned her passion into support for wellness brands. She has a background in English, Film, Media Design, PR, and Educational Technology. Outside of providing support for wellness brands, she is the Founder of Naturalsita Life, a wellness brand aimed to help people transition into natural living.
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