Big News: Pitney Meadows “Sovereign Gardens Intiative” Receives New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets 2025 Urban Farms & Community Gardens $50,000 Grant!
We’re thrilled to share that Pitney Meadows has been awarded a $50,000 grant through the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets 2025 Urban Farms & Community Gardens Grant Program! This funding will fully support our Sovereign Gardens Initiative through the 2026 growing season, helping more neighbors grow their own food.
Cultivating Community from the Ground Up
Our mission has always centered on growing food while also nurturing connection. In Saratoga County, one in ten residents, along with one in seven children, experience food insecurity. Nearly 40% of our neighbors struggle to find affordable, healthy food close to home. Many households earn too much to qualify for traditional assistance programs, yet still face impossible choices at the grocery store.
The Sovereign Gardens Initiative was born in response to this reality. Rather than focusing solely on emergency food systems, the Sovereign Gardens Initiative empowers and equips community-based organizations to grow their own food right where they are… in housing complexes, veteran support centers, health clinics, and neighborhood gathering spaces.
Through the Sovereign Gardens Initiative, we provide compost, seeds, raised beds, irrigation systems, and hands-on support. Even more importantly, we offer partnership. We grow alongside local organizations as they build gardens that are truly their own. Staff, volunteers, and clients work together to nurture these spaces, tending the soil and sharing the harvest. Through this work, they cultivate sustenance as well as pride, purpose, and meaningful connection.
What This Grant Makes Possible
This $50,000 grant will allow Pitney Meadows to expand the Sovereign Gardens Initiative’s reach and deepen its impact. With this support, we’ll grow from nine active partner gardens to thirteen across Saratoga County, prioritizing communities most affected by systemic inequities, including BIPOC, disabled, veteran, and low-income populations.
Each participating site will receive direct funding and technical assistance to establish or expand its garden. Our team will continue to provide seasonal planning, planting guidance, and site-specific production strategies, while investing in new infrastructure, from soil improvements and irrigation systems to season-extending tools that make local food production more reliable year-round.
Sustaining the Growth
As the Sovereign Gardens Initiative moves into its third year, sustainability remains at its core. Our approach ensures that gardens thrive long after initial setup: partners maintain their growing spaces season after season, while Pitney Meadows continues to provide technical support. Many sites have already expanded their plots or inspired new garden projects nearby.
This grant strengthens not only infrastructure, but also something even more powerful: the relationships between people, the sense of ownership that comes from working the land together, and the shared understanding that food is a right, not a privilege.
We’re deeply grateful to Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets for recognizing the impact of community-grown food systems and for investing in this vision of shared abundance. We also thank our incredible partner organizations, from housing providers and food pantries to health centers and veteran groups, whose staff and clients bring each garden to life with care and dedication.
As we look ahead to 2026, we’re excited to keep growing, in every sense of the word! The Sovereign Gardens Initiative will cultivate more than food; it will cultivate belonging, dignity, and self-sufficiency across Saratoga County.
When communities have the tools and the trust to grow their own nourishment, food security truly takes root!