In 2013, our founders, May Tsupros and Adam Zmick teamed up to create Gardeneers after witnessing the impact of food within the schools they taught. Their mission was to give students access to healthy foods in schools in food-insecure neighborhoods throughout Chicago.

Since our founding, our sense of mission has evolved. We see our work as social and racial justice work in the form of school garden education. You might notice we don’t use “food desert”. The food inequity we see in our city, and across the country, isn’t a result of natural, ecological conditions, but rather deeply rooted racism.

This is why our talented and passionate Garden Educators ground their lessons in the fact that growing one’s own food is a form of power, and a powerful way indeed to support one’s own community.

Our hope is that one day every human has easy access to fresh, nourishing foods and all communities are healthy and sustainable.