Our Mission
Brooklyn Rewilders reconnects children and communities to the living world, through ecological education in schools and native food hedges on Brooklyn's fence lines, rooted in the belief that we are not visitors to the natural world, but part of it.
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Ecological Education That Sticks
Afterschool and in-school programs that put children in direct contact with the living world, through gardens, wild foods, native plants, soil science, and the insects, birds, and fungi that share their schoolyard. Learning that traces the relationships between living things, and lives in the hands and body, not just the head.
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Urban Rewilding
Fences of Abundance plants native berry hedges along Brooklyn's fence lines, open to anyone who passes. Each hedge is habitat for pollinators and wildlife, a food source for neighbors, and a small repair in the relationship between the city and the living world it is built on.
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A community of life
Our work creates places where the community includes more than people. Where children understand the web of relationships that sustains all life, where generations learn alongside each other, and where humans and the rest of the living world find their way back to reciprocity: the exchange of care that everything alive depends on.
Our Values
WILD - Living with Loving Respect
We honor the earth and all its ecosystems, approaching nature with reverence and care. Being wild means living authentically, with deep respect for the interconnected web of life that sustains us all.
Joy
Joy is our foundation, the energy that transforms learning into something unforgettable. Through laughter, play, and genuine enthusiasm, we create experiences where children's natural exuberance meets the wild world, sparking connections that last a lifetime.
Curiosity
We nurture the wonder that drives all learning. Through asking questions, exploring mysteries, and approaching the unknown with open minds, we discover the incredible complexity and beauty of the natural world.
Compassionate Community
True rewilding happens together. Through shared learning, mutual support, and kindness to all living beings, we build connections that strengthen both our human bonds and our relationship with the natural world.
Self-Reliance
Like wild plants pushing through city sidewalks, we develop the independence, confidence, and practical capabilities that come from mastering real knowledge: growing food, understanding natural cycles, trusting your own hands. We want children to carry that confidence into everything they do.
Mindfulness
We practice deep attention to the present moment, observing the subtle rhythms of nature and our inner landscapes with curiosity and care.
Imagination
We celebrate the creative spirit that finds new solutions, expresses wonder through art and play, and reimagines how humans can live in relationship with the rest of the living world.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is the heartbeat of all healthy relationships, with nature, with each other, and with ourselves. We practice the exchange of giving and receiving, understanding that true abundance flows when we tend the world that tends us. It is at the heart of our Fences of Abundance program: neighbors tend native plants, and the plants feed the neighborhood in return.
WHY THIS WORK MATTERS
Most children growing up in Brooklyn today have little unstructured time outdoors. They know more about the digital world than the living one outside their windows. The gap between human communities and natural systems has never been wider, and the costs show up in children's bodies, attention, and sense of what is possible.
Children spend an average of 7 hours a day on screens and less than one hour outdoors (American Academy of Pediatrics). Only 6% of children aged 9-13 play outside independently each week (Children & Nature Network). And in Brooklyn, fewer than 40% of elementary schools have any outdoor learning space (NYC School Construction Authority).
At the same time, research consistently shows that time in nature reduces anxiety, improves attention, and gives children a felt sense of belonging to something larger than themselves. Children with regular contact with nature show stronger emotional resilience and a greater sense of agency in the world around them.
We believe the city has more room for wildness than people imagine. And children who discover that will grow into people who make different choices, better choices, choices rooted in relationship rather than extraction.
our programs
🌱 IN-SCHOOL ENRICHMENT
We bring native plant gardens, pollinator studies, soil science, and ecological observation directly into school life. Children learn to use magnifying glasses and microscopes to study what lives in a handful of soil, to identify native plants by leaf shape and smell, to watch a habitat change through the seasons.
Programs can be designed for a single class, a grade level, or the whole school. We work with whatever growing space exists, from a row of planters to an established school garden, and we build curriculum that fits both the space and the school's existing learning goals.
🔍 AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS
Smaller, deeper, and outdoors as much as possible. Our afterschool groups cook with plants from the garden, make art from natural materials, investigate the wildlife living in the schoolyard, and learn the names and stories of the species that share their neighborhood.
Sessions run through Fall, Winter, and Spring.
🫐 Fences of Abundance
It starts with a moment of pure surprise: ripe berries on a fence, a freely given gift for anyone who walks by.
Brooklyn Rewilders works with building owners, block associations, schools, and community members to plant native berry hedges along fence lines across the borough. Each site is collectively stewarded under gift economy principles: take what you need, tend what you can, share what you have.
The first Fences of Abundance site is at PS9 in Prospect Heights, where raspberry canes and blueberry bushes now line the school garden fence. We are adding new sites in Spring and Fall 2026, growing both the hedges and the network of people who care for them.
What we see in that network goes beyond the pleasure of free fruit. People begin to see the natural world differently, as abundant and giving rather than scarce and closed off.
Our Impact
What we see in schools
Children who can name native plants, identify insects, and explain how soil works
Students who approach the outdoors with confidence and genuine curiosity
Families reporting that children's nature attention extends beyond program time into daily life
Teachers describing increased engagement and cross-subject connection
What we see in communities
Neighbors who discover berries on a fence and stop to talk to each other about them
Stewards who begin as volunteers and become co-designers of new sites
People awakening to a different way of seeing the natural world, as abundant and giving rather than scarce and locked away
The longer arc
We believe children who grow up with a felt relationship to the living world become adults who design differently, create differently, and advocate differently. These are the seeds we are planting now, one schoolyard and one fence line at a time.
Partnership opportunities
Our work touches many edges: education and ecology, commons and community, art and the natural world, traditional knowledge and urban space. We partner with schools, cultural organizations, researchers, land stewards, artists, and neighbors, and some of our most interesting collaborations came from conversations we didn't expect to have.
We are always looking for fence lines, community partners, researchers, artists, educators, and neighbors who want to be part of what we're building. If that's you, in any form, reach out. We're genuinely curious to hear from you.
