Seed Distribution Hubs
Grow food security, start a seed hub!
Apply to receive seeds in 2022 through the Cooperative Gardens Commission (CGC), and to establish yourself as a seed hub in your region. We are now requesting hubs to commit to sending $15 to cover the cost of shipping, if possible.
Our aim is to connect those with food-growing resources — including seeds, soil, tools, equipment, land, labor, and knowledge — with those who lack such resources. We hope to increase local food production during this time of uncertainty and insecurity.
This effort is intended for groups/organizations or individuals willing to serve as local or regional seed distribution hubs. Please note that filling out this form is not a guarantee of receiving seeds. CGC will make its best effort to accommodate all requests.
If you have been a seed hub before, you know we struggled in 2021 to retain volunteer numbers and did our level best to ship seeds out to everyone as quickly as possible. After a dedicated fundraising effort, we were only able to raise close-to-shipping costs for sending seeds. This presents us all with two challenges:
We’re off to a late start and we don’t have quite enough funds to cover costs.
We need a dedicated effort from this point on (January 8, 2022) to allocate and ship seeds in a timely way.
We remain committed to providing seeds to communities most impacted by the pandemic and historic injustice.
We will continue to ship seeds to areas where the growing season starts sooner.
We are now requesting hubs to commit to sending $15 to cover the cost of shipping, if possible.
We ask that people with the ability to do so, consider sending $30 to cover an additional hub’s shipping costs.
Whatever can be contributed to this will help everyone get seeds faster.
The ability to make a contribution for shipping, or not, will not be a determining factor in your application review.
50 Seed Hubs filled out the Seed Hub survey as of January 8th. These hubs will not be asked for a donation, but if they can send shipping costs it will help the overall CGC effort. In order to meet the timeline, we plan to allocate a fair chunk of funds raised to date to offer stipends to 3-4 dedicated folx at the Philly Seed Distribution Center. This will allow a dedicated effort to begin immediately. Last year, seeds were sourced, bundled, and sent by 5 people, primarily managed by one volunteer logging 600+ hours, during days interspersed around work hours. We don’t have enough to offer a fair wage for this full process, but we have some of these funds that we can turn into a stipend to offer them.
We have not shared data with a third party in the seed hub application process. However, in our efforts to raise funds we have applied for a grant. If we are allowed to collect anonymous data–zip code and general information only, such as numbers of people served, and estimated amounts of food grown if possible–for the purposes of meeting grant qualifications that would be good. With some amount of information, we will be able to ensure that we are reaching those we intend to help. Folx contributing data are also invited to the table, to be part of determining how that data is managed, saved, and made available for regional fund-raising efforts. We will intend to work with pre-informed consent and follow ethical guidelines for data collection.
If you appreciate our work
Consider donating. Any support you can offer will increase our ability to continue with the core of our work, free* seed distribution. With your donation, we will be able to continue to create connections, build community, and help improve access to safe, healthy food during this crisis and beyond.
We are currently working on a tool to serve hubs and food growers/seed savers in our collective effort to build food and nutrition security. If you are curious and want to be involved in that effort, join our Organizing Calls, now happening every other Monday at the same Zoom link we use for all of our organizing. If you don’t have it, register via our home page.
Share our 44-page 2020 Report with folks who can offer support to help us keep going! The report includes details on our seed distribution efforts and the rest of our work — including policy, land justice, racial justice, and education — all of which we intend to increase and expand upon after we fulfill our main purpose, free* seed distribution.
Seed Sourcing In A Good Way
There are many CGC organizers representing parts of the organic seed movement—seed savers, breeders, companies, community leaders, etc. Working together we have managed to apply the principles of that movement to our work. This means taking care to only request and share untreated non-GMO seeds that can be saved, not patented or otherwise restricted, adequately labeled, and in many cases culturally important.
-Seed Distribution Working Group
Photo by Grace Winter
2020
257 Seed Hubs, 41 States, 12,000 Gardens
2021
400+ Seed Hubs
Working Together
In 2020, CGC’s Free Seed Distribution Program was coordinated and implemented by volunteer organizers working on a shoestring budget to help communities feed themselves in the midst of a historic pandemic and persistent social inequality.
Read more about our allocation and distribution in our Annual Report:
50% More in 2022
We believe growing food can be an integral part of a comprehensive approach to improving the health and wellbeing of individuals and communities, especially during a pandemic. Our program is designed to fill a real material need for successful gardening, which empowers communities for self-reliance and contributes to a robust, healthy, and resilient food web.
FREE SEED DISTRIBUTION
Help get seeds to people who need them!
If you have bulk seeds you’d like to donate, please email details and contact information to cooperativegardens@gmail.com. Thank you!
In spring 2020, just as consumers began “panic buying” and hoarding food and supplies bought from stores, seed companies around the world began seeing huge increases in sales. Many of the earliest CGC organizers are seed farmers or represent seed companies and non-profits, so we knew very quickly that access to seeds would be a major challenge for people trying to grow food for themselves and their communities, and thus the CGC Seed Distribution Working Group was formed.
We decided to form a central hub for taking in bulk seed donations and redistributing them to people in need via local and regional hubs. Making Worlds Bookstore in West Philadelphia offered their pandemic-shuttered storefront as the main hub (though seeds are mailed to a different location), and a wonderful team of volunteers came together to do the work. Over 257 groups and individuals applied to be local hubs, and a selection committee worked hard to determine which applicants would receive seeds first and how many they would receive. We determined early on to prioritize projects led by and supporting BIPOC communities (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color).
Download our 2020 report to learn more about how we started:
