Dear Community,

An employee of GrowNYC's FARMroots program recently received a demeaning, racist, and hurtful note in response to a newsletter acknowledging the important contributions made by Latinx individuals to US agriculture. I write today to firmly denounce this behavior, and unequivocally state that it has absolutely no place in our community.

As an organization that brings New Yorkers together across all of our programs, from Swaps to community gardens and our Greenmarkets, GrowNYC is appalled by the current level of comfort individuals have expressing hate speech. Moreover, we have the responsibility of ensuring our employees’ dignity, safety, and rights.

Accordingly, any member of our community who harbors racist or hateful beliefs like these should consider themselves unwelcome.

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There’s so much work for us to accomplish together in this incredible city of ours. Here’s to doing just that.

Marcel Van Ooyen
President & CEO
GrowNYC