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.
Capital Roots Urban Grow Center is a regional food hub where the power of local agriculture is being channeled for the social, economic, and physical benefits of the entire Capital Region. Through increased and improved produce storage and distribution capacity, the Urban Grow Center enables Capital Roots to supply more people with more food from local farms, improving access to nutritious food in urban areas while helping regional farmers cost-effectively reach new markets. The facility also includes a produce stand which serves a neighborhood without access to fresh food.
The Produce Hub at the Urban Grow Center is equipped with two large walk-in coolers, loading bays, and enough room to maneuver pallets of produce. This facility upgrade will enable Capital Roots to triple the amount of fresh food we deliver to underserved neighborhoods and low-income families in the Capital Region.
Programs:
Community Gardens
makes garden plots available to anyone interested in growing their own produce. Gardeners receive nutritional, recreational, social and physical benefits from tending plots.
Veggie Mobile®
is a traveling market that delivers fresh produce (often locally grown) to thousands of residents in urban neighborhoods without access to healthy food. Operating Monday through Saturday, the Veggie Mobile® makes more than 30 stops per week along with its companion mobile market, the Sprout.
Produce Project
employs at-risk students from Troy High School to operate a year-round urban farm and to sell their harvest at markets. In addition to learning life, job and entrepreneurial skills, each student earns school credit, a stipend and a share of the farm’s bounty to share with their families.
Healthy Stores
makes produce available in custom designed, refrigerated display units at urban convenience stores where families shop every day.
Taste Good Series
educates inner-city students, in pre-kindergarten through second grade, about nutrition. Capital Roots’ Educator uses music and games to make the lessons fun and to encourage students to help prepare and taste the produce.
Squash Hunger
uses convenient drop off locations and a network of volunteers to deliver excess produce from gardeners, farmers, and market shoppers to food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens throughout the region. Each year we collect tons of produce that benefits thousands of low-income residents.
Urban Greening
uses public landscaping and street tree planting projects to add aesthetic appeal, increase property values, reduce energy consumption and improve the overall quality of life in participating communities.
Healthy Streets
makes Capital Region roadways accessible to all residents regardless of their preferred method of travel. With increased opportunities for walking and biking in urban settings, Capital Region residents are offered a safe space to recreate, commute or move within their neighborhoods and the larger community.