391
Backers
$23,226
pledged of $20,000 goal
0
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Funding Successful
This project successfully raised its funding goal on May 28, 2010.
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For all donations of $10 or more, we will list you as a donor on our website and name one of our honeybees after you!
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Donors who pledge $25 will receive a bag of fresh Brooklyn Grange vegetables. Come to our farm stand to meet us and redeem your gift!*
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Donors who pledge $50 will receive a bag of fresh Brooklyn Grange vegetables and free entry into an instructional farming workshop!
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Donors who pledge $100 will receive a bag of fresh Brooklyn Grange vegetables and a limited edition Brooklyn Grange t-shirt.
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Donors who pledge $500 will receive a limited edition Brooklyn Grange t-shirt and a gift basket of a variety of our favorite farm fresh produce!
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Donors who pledge $1,000 or more will receive a limited edition Brooklyn Grange t-shirt, a gift basket with a selection of our favorite farm fresh produce AND a ticket to our end-of-season harvest fundraiser party!
Project By
Connected as Ben Flanner (793 friends)
Brooklyn Grange is a rooftop farming business located in New York City. We raised over $20,000 in 2010 to help fund the installation of our first farm, which is a one-acre vegetable farm on the roof of a hundred year old factory building in Queens. We are opening our second farm this spring in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and will be expanding our total farm area by more than double. In two years we have grown over 25,000 lbs of fresh vegetables, hosted thousands of school children, and captured millions of gallons of rainwater at our farm.
Related to this project, we've enjoyed keeping bees on our farm not only for their honey production and pollination of our fruiting crops, but for the beekeeping community that they attract. We've had immense interest from the NYC community in purchasing our honey, learning more about bees, and getting more involved. This project will serve that interest, and the increase in honey production will be a valuable source of sales for the farm. The proceeds from the apiary will serve as a sustainable, long-term source of sales which will contribute to keeping our farms running and thriving for years to come.
AWESOME. You guys are an inspiration!!! I look forward to munching on your produce on my return.
I Love your project!!! All the very best to you all on it!!! 100 Mile Diet concept at it's finest!!!
Go Go Go - and please contact me re any horticultural inut - mucho experience in rooftop gardening ...1981 award from progressiv architecture for rootop garden on 519 east 11th street.
I teach at Columbia as well....www.serenityinthegarden.blogspot.com
CONGRATULATIONS!!
Congratulations, Ben et al.! What an outstanding adventure you guys are embarking on.
In reply to David White, there is actually quite a bit of research on green roofs that has showed building energy savings. Check out the work being done right in New York City by Columbia: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Rosenzweig_etal.pdf
There has also been a lot of research coming out of Greece showing substantial energy savings.
I'd be interested in knowing what paper you were referring to.
You did it. Congratulations.
nice! super! full speed ahead. rock on.
but i am pretty sure that claims about heating energy savings on green roofs are false. i've read one paper that proved this out and heard of many others. soil is about as conductive as concrete, not a great insulation. however, i wonder if the building occupants would see value in you adding insulation. you may be able to integrate a couple of inches of foam (which you can get cheap or free by salvaging), and turn around and charge the occupants below for the energy savings. it may also integrate well with the green roof system you use. feel free to contact me for further interest: my name is David and my company is Right Environments and there's a dot com at the end.
Congratulation!!!
Congratulations!
Keep up the good work!
The idea of homeless rainbow kale is too sad to bear! Good luck Brooklyn Grange!
Loving this idea and want to learn more about it and find out how to contribute (apart from the obvious ... i.e. becoming a backer). Best of luck guys - we're really excited to learn that this is happening, and will check back soon with our pledge!
Dear Grange,
I won a Progressive Architecture award in 1981 for rooftop greenhouse on 11 street in NYC. Then went to Washington, D.C. and ran one for Institute for Local Self Reliance! Lots of experience and hail from Brooklyn to boot! ( PS 8 and Pershing Junior High School)...
Please contact me re rooftop gardening info (important stuff) and I would like to contribute! www.serenityinthegarden.blogspot.com is my blog.
It would be great if you could answer all these questions in this forum, rather than via email. Thanks.
This is the future of farming, the future of healthy living and healthy eating in America. This is the future incarnation of your neighborhood mom 'n pop business. This is how we can reclaim our bodies and minds from corporate interests. It is absolutely necessary that this enterprise survives because we need to know what we are eating and who is growing it. From the bottom of my heart, please help Brooklyn Grange claim farming for the the city, for the people, for you. Please support this cause.
Thank you Brooklyn Grange. Keep the love alive.
Yea!!! Half way and half way...
Come on people -- home stretch time
Unbelievably cool. Best of luck with the project.
wow, love your project! Im an edible publisher in CA [edible San Luis Obispo (CA)] and just sent a note to ALL the 65+ edible publishers in the country to inform them not only about kickstarter.com but about you folks. Im so stoked that the average is $50+ that people have given you. so what happens if you dont get all the money? by May 28th? they get their money back? why does it say "at least $20,000" when the goal states $20,000. Am I missing something?
woohooo good luck!!!!
Great idea, Guys! We're a bit far to visit (as we're in Australia). But we wish you all the best.
Hey Josh - all good questions.
Want to email us at brooklyngrangefarm@gmail.com? The answer is yes to pretty much all of your questions. We have a business plan that we can share with you, we have prior experience, and we know what our overhead (rent + seeds and supplies) will be. We'll grow almost everything vegetable-wise, and always experimenting! In terms of the finances, it will be tight. We're going to grow smart and take care of the soil, which will set us up for about a 6-yr payback on one roof.
Let's speak further - be in touch!
Lana- I was referring to how the plants (future food) would absorb the pollutants in the air, transferring to humans in the food chain. Similar to how we should not eat fish from the east river. NYC air water is not clean or "organic".
I really love this project! I can't donate because I am out of a job and have sunk all my money into my own green projects lately. I would love to offer you my help if you ever need it. I have a strong architecture background and at my last job where I worked for 3 years I specialized in the building envelope.... so i know a LOT about roofs (including green roofs) so I am pretty handy for researching things of that matter. Just thought I would throw it out there :)
I would imagine having rooftop farms would help the "polluted and soot filled air" and for the most part I really don't think that would be a problem, especially as things get greener and greener.
Keep thinking about the future!
Let me know if you need any help with your roof design.
Lana
A living wage for four urban farmers in NYC is more than any profit you will ever earn from an un-sustainable roof farming project. There are MANY reasons farming is done on FARMS and not in cities. Cost of land and labor, for one. Polluted and soot filled air is another. Yes transportation to market is cheaper, but that is really the only good reason I could think of.
I am very interested in supporting rooftop farming, guys great to you getting involved. But before I pledge, I want to make sure the project is viable and will be effectively run...so its there for the long term. First, what is your business plan? Any idea of your overhead or what you will grow and how much you will charge? Also, you *will* donate a portion of this food to shelters or other community agencies that feed the poor, right? Lastly, what business experience do you have ?
Thanks
Hi Christopher, thanks for your question. We are a for-profit business. We believe in adding fiscal sustainability to the sustainability rubric so that urban rooftop farms can expand across the city, the Northeast and even the world! Any profits we make will go towards paying our farmer a living wage and whatever remains will be reinvested in the business so we can keep growing.
Do you guys make a profit? If so, what is done with it? Is it donated, do you guys keep it? Thanks.
Thanks Sheryl! Brian is coming to NYC this weekend. We will thank him for you in person!
My son ask me to back you> Its sounds like a great Idea .
This sounds amazing! Can I ask what part of Brooklyn the project will be located in? and more importantly - where will the farmstand be?
Thanks!
Hi Keehnan, thanks so much for your message! Please email us at brooklyngrangefarm@gmail.com, we would love to discuss!
Best,
the BG crew
Some friends and I would like to throw a fundraiser for this in the coming weeks. I'm wondering how money raised through that event could be properly donated?
Hey Chad,
It's a light-weight soil green roof soil. Compost is blended with pumice, expanded shale, and calcine, which allow for air flow, strong drainage, and strong root growth.
Of course the roof will be able to hold the weight - we wouldn't use a roof that isn't strong enough! We have a structural engineer certify the roof's ability to hold the weight load.
The funds from Kickstarter will go into payments for the soil, the green roof membrane (drainage, water absorption, protection to the roof), summer seeds, bamboo stakes for tomatoes, and any other problem solving that comes up.
One million pounds? Can that roof safely hold that much weight? What kind of soil are you using--is there any way to reduce that footprint? Can you break down what the money goes towards a little more?
Thanks, I love the idea and want to see it succeed!