Keep Growing Detroit has over 70 seasonal, high tunnel gardens, and operates out of a central farm located in the Eastern Market District.
At the central farm, transplants and seeds are grown and distributed to gardeners in their network, and workshops are hosted for any interested community members.
By emphasizing community engagement, leadership opportunities, and agricultural education, Keep Growing Detroit enables participants to establish agency over the way they obtain their food.
[4] This debt has resulted in increased crime and poverty rates, and a rapidly decreasing population due to white flight.
The Health Fund is one of several organizations that supplies grants to Keep Growing Detroit in support of its initiatives and actions towards community building and food sovereignty.
[16] Additional supporters are the Mahindra North American Technical Center, Wayne State University, and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Services.
Participants who volunteer a minimum of 2 hours of their time receive additional benefits such as compost, access to garden tools and soil testing."
Members of Keep growing Detroit gain access to the Garden resource program plant varieties official document.
A table in the document outlines the basics of what the grower would be given to plant through certain packages that pertain to specific membership criteria.
Along with this, Earthworks organizes youth and adult programs five times a week in which they educate attendees on environmental awareness, growing food, healthy nutrition, and cooking/food preparation.
The adult program goes a step further and teaches people farming skills they can apply to their own urban agriculture project.
The foundation that was laid within this council acted as a platform from which Keep Growing Detroit could develop their mission toward urban agriculture.
[14] The program provides means for community members to examine the history of their gardening practices, incorporating their own levels of personal resilience through their work.
[25] The educational programs for KGD are supported by the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, an organization that values the attention towards student apprentices involved in KGD [26] The student apprenticeships aim to provide community instruction and leadership opportunities to youth and young adults in the Detroit area.
The programs educate Detroit residents in order to promote practices of self-determination, celebrating urban agriculture as a necessary skill as well as a way of creating community.
[25] The program is taught in a 6-part series, educating potential beekeepers in general bee biology and proper control and maintenance of their hives.
KGD offers classes to community members in the area, focusing on educating locals in the basics of gardening and maintaining produce.
The programs cover a broad range of topics, including preservation of gardens, plant growth, and ways to sustainably harvest and eat the products.
[29] The programs incorporate interaction and play amongst families and neighbors in Detroit, in efforts to start building healthy habits from a young age.
[30] The leadership within KGD connects with other groups in Detroit combatting food sovereignty, in the overall push towards expansion of community gardening within the city.
[25] The program educates students in horticulture methodology, and prepares graduates to continue on into further leadership roles in their neighborhoods.
A network of urban gardening organizations is educating more residents in areas of leadership in order to increase the growing accumulation and success of produce amongst the vacant lots of Detroit.
The urban agriculture movement taking place in Detroit is heavily influenced by the availability of land in the surrounding area.