For Admission
Karen Washington is a farmer and community activist, striving to make the New York a better place to live. As a former community gardener and current board member of the New York Botanical Gardens, she worked with Bronx neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens.
As an advocate, and former president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition, she stood up and spoke out for garden protection and preservation. As a member of the La Familia Verde Garden Coalition, she helped launch a City Farms Market, bringing fresh vegetables to the community.
in 2010, Co- Founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS) an organization supporting growers in both urban and rural settings. Karen has received numerous awards most recently the co-recipient of the 2023 James Beard Humanitarian Award and the 2024 Emerson Collective Fellowship. She has been credited with the term food apartheid instead of food desert, to bring to the forefront the inequities seen in the food system. Mama K as she is known in the community, serves on the boards of the New York Botanical Gardens, Black Farmer Fund, Soul Fire Farm, the Mary Mitchell Center, and Green Workers Cooperative
