Our biggest supporter is an esteemed visionary Artist
Seeds the City Needs operates with a nationwide vision to confront and help eliminate food insecurity across urban environments. Our outreach is intentionally built to expand far beyond any single city, borough, or zip code. Regional community activations serve as our vital proof-of-concept models, showing how effectively our self-funded bulk agricultural drops can be executed through local hubs like schools and churches.
To drive this movement on a national scale, the anonymous floral artist Mr. Flower Fantastic (MFF) bridges contemporary art, global street culture, and public wellness. He translates monumental cultural moments into a powerful voice for food justice and environmental sustainability, ensuring the mission reaches communities across the country:
- The WeightWatchers National Tour: A core example of our multi-state outreach, this collaboration featured custom, food-centric floral art installations across three states. The tour was designed to bring massive public awareness to nutritional literacy, healthy eating, and systemic wellness gaps in underserved areas.
- The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) Collaboration: For his collaboration and activation of The Orchid Show: Concrete Jungle at NYBG, MFF fused high art with urban themes to amplify the dialogue surrounding nature, accessibility, and community care on a premier institutional stage.
By channeling the visibility of these high-profile national campaigns, and through the dedicated service of our trusted food vendor, Grow Easy Gifts, we are establishing a scalable framework capable of bringing bulk fresh fruits and vegetables to disadvantaged communities nationwide.
Why This Matters
"Food insecurity has always been a big issue in the Bronx." Ursula Chanse, Director of Bronx Green-Up and Community Horticulture, NYBG
"The New York Botanical Garden's Bronx Green-Up community outreach program, which has helped establish more than 300 gardens since it began in 1988, is coordinating a collective network of community gardens and farms to greatly increase the local production and distribution of fresh fruit and vegetables."
— New York Botanical Garden
"What began in the 1980s as a movement to reclaim abandoned city lots with the first NYBG Bronx Green-Up community gardens has since provided places of refuge and community, and most recently, essential food hubs during the pandemic."
— NYBG Bronx Foodways Oral Histories Project "A farmers market takes place on Wednesdays and is free to the public, encouraging healthful eating and lifestyles through cooking demonstrations, recipes, flyers and health screenings."
— New York Botanical Garden Our three annual food drops are how we put this movement into action — bringing fresh food directly to the neighbors who need it most.
Excerpts courtesy of the New York Botanical Garden and Mr. Flower Fantastic
Over one million people have experienced the Orchid Show exhibition Concrete Jungle, born from the collaboration between Mr. Flower Fantastic and the New York Botanical Garden.
