Growing Food and Community: Harvest Festivals Bring Neighbors Together at NYCHA Farms

For one Forest Houses resident, the benefits of visiting his neighborhood farm can be measured in his steps.

“When I come to this farm, I may be leaning on this cane,” Keith Street told NYCHA’s Farms Partnerships Manager John Lisbon. “But when I leave the farm, I’m dancing.”

Mr. Lisbon described Mr. Street arriving with a small drum, joining the music, and talking enthusiastically about encouraging his neighbors to discover the benefits of fresh produce.

That combination of nourishment, connection, and enjoyment has been on colorful display this October at Green City Force’s annual Harvest Festivals at NYCHA farm sites. With pumpkins, face painting, games, music, and plenty of produce on display and available to take home from the 2026 farming season, the celebrations give families a chance to enjoy the harvest-time moment together, close to home.

Devon Martinez of Green City Force credited the enthusiasm of GCF’s participants for the festivals’ success.

This year’s series began October 3 at Forest Houses in the Bronx, followed by Mariners Harbor on Staten Island October 10 and Wagner Houses in Manhattan October 17. The final festival is scheduled for Saturday, October 24, starting at 11 a.m., near the basketball court at Astoria Houses in Queens.

Organized and hosted by Green City Force (GCF), a partner in NYCHA’s Farms & Gardens program, the festivals also offer a lively introduction to a kind of good work that continues long after the pumpkins go home.

According to Devon Martinez, GCF’s Senior Director of Service, the organization had distributed approximately 16,000 pounds of produce across its five farm sites since the season’s Juneteenth kickoff. Distributions are planned to continue through the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, including an extra distribution that week to help residents prepare for the holiday.

On most Saturdays during the season, cooking demonstrations give residents an opportunity to taste the vegetables they are taking home and learn ways to prepare unfamiliar ingredients, such as Swiss chard or different varieties of eggplant. Pickling workshops offer another way to explore and take advantage of what the farms produce.

For the Harvest Festivals, the offerings expand to include pumpkin giveaways, tie-dyed shirts, photo opportunities with scarecrows, and DJs recruited from the developments themselves.

“We try to make sure that we’re hiring each event’s DJ from that specific NYCHA campus,” Ms. Martinez explained.

Ms. Martinez credited the enthusiasm of GCF’s newest participants — their Cohort 31, which began their term on September 29 — for the festivals’ success.

“They really like the community engagement,” Ms. Martinez said. “And they are doing a really great job engaging community members for these events.”

For the newcomers, the festivals coincide with an introductory “boot camp” covering urban agriculture, safety, dressing for outdoor work, weeding, and planting. Their first weeks bring them into direct contact with the neighbors who use the farms, offering an early opportunity to see how their work connects with community life.

Mr. Lisbon, whose work is part of NYCHA’s Resident Health Initiatives, has been particularly impressed by the personal connections between GCF program participants and residents. Beyond overseeing the various activities, he said, the fellows have readily shared their own histories and stories of where they come from.

“It fosters a connection, a bond that may not have been there,” he said.

Mr. Keith Street of Forest Houses brought a drum to his community’s festival,
adding his own unique voice and contribution to the celebration

He recalled asking one young participant about his plans after completing the program. The response included ideas for improving the experience for the young people who would follow him in the GCF program. For Mr. Lisbon, such thoughtfulness and care for future program participants reflects the growth that naturally accompanies learning about environmental justice and caring for the land alongside residents.

Another encounter illustrated how the festivals can connect generations. One dad attending a festival with his two children told Mr. Lisbon that the experience brought back memories of his own childhood visits to the Queens County Farm. Now he was sharing something similar with his kids, right where they lived, and he was delighted by it.

Mr. Lisbon hopes residents of Ravenswood, where a new farm is being developed, will visit Astoria’s celebration to see the possibilities ahead: fresh food, education, activities, and a gathering place for neighbors.

“This is a service that the whole family benefits from,” Mr. Lisbon said.

To connect with NYCHA’s Farms and Gardens program email gardens@nycha.nyc.gov or call 212-306-8282 and leave a message.