Congratulations to the 2025 Lots of Compassion Winners!
Together Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day and KidsGardening congratulate the new Lots of Compassion grant program winners!
In 2025, the following 10 grantees will receive $20,000 each to transform a vacant lot into a garden to help grow compassion in their community. A total of $200,000 will be awarded.
Community Action Services and Food Bank (Spanish Fork, Utah)
Community Action Services & Food Bank (CASFB) empowers individuals and families in Utah, Wasatch, and Summit Counties to achieve self-reliance. Through a regional food bank system, emergency shelter vouchers, and rent and utility assistance, they stabilize those facing homelessness. Their broader mission supports vibrant, sustainable communities with access to housing, food, economic opportunity, and dependable relationships. They guide clients toward long-term success through financial education, self-reliance coaching, community gardens, and personalized action plans that lead to secure housing or employment.
Transforming a vacant lot into a productive and vibrant community space aligns with their mission to stabilize lives and rebuild futures. They shared, “It’s not just about growing food, it’s about growing opportunity, dignity, and community.”
GRO Health Center (St. Louis, Missouri)
Established in 2020, GRO Health Center is a Missouri-based nonprofit dedicated to improving community well-being through sustainability practices, health education, and economic opportunity programs. They partner with local communities to promote sustainable living, advance nutrition knowledge, and support economic development that benefits Missouri residents.
They seek to transform vacant lots into community gardens as catalysts for neighborhood economic revitalization and resilience. These spaces address immediate challenges of food access while creating opportunities for sustainable economic development in underserved St. Louis communities.
Light of Loving Kindness (Chicago, Illinois)
Light of Loving Kindness (LOLK), Tribe Learning Coop, and Cultural Canvas Cafe are working together to transform a long-vacant lot in Chicago's Washington Heights neighborhood into a productive, educational garden space for youth and families. Their goal is to activate an underutilized land in a way that promotes community connection, hands-on learning, and access to fresh food.
Light of Loving Kindness, a Black and woman-led 501(c)3 non-profit organization, curates arts, nature, and wellness experiences that activate Hope, Health, Healing, and Wholeness. Tribe Learning Coop's mission is to relearn their ancestral ways of life rooted in family wellness, sustainability, and life sciences. Cultural Canvas Cafe's mission is to nourish the body, mind, and spirit by providing a welcoming space where art, community, and social services come together.
Together, the organizations will engage youth ages 3–18 in gardening, entrepreneurship, and environmental education. By converting a neglected space into a vibrant, visible learning hub, they aim to foster belonging, community pride, and long-term investment in this neighborhood.
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (North Hills, California)
Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust and Carlos Santana Arts Academy envision transforming the Tupper Street Lot—a city-owned, underutilized parcel in the heart of North Hills—into a vibrant outdoor classroom and community garden. The lot, located directly across the street from Carlos Santana Arts Academy, was previously activated through the City of LA’s Adopt-A-Lot program.
They aim to turn this vision into reality by embarking on the second phase of this project: creating a permanent, multi-functional garden where students can engage in hands-on lessons in science, art, food justice, environmental stewardship, and health. The space will help children connect with nature, develop empathy and collaboration skills, and better understand climate, nutrition, and land-based cultural knowledge.
Midtown Partners, Inc. (Jackson, Mississippi)
Midtown Partners plans to transform an overgrown, vacant lot in the heart of Jackson’s Midtown neighborhood into an ADA-accessible Community Urban Farm & Wellness Garden—a welcoming space for hands-on learning, community care, and environmental resilience. Transforming this lot will expand equitable access to healthy food, holistic wellness, and nature-based education. It will also offer a peaceful place for neighbors to build relationships, share knowledge, and connect with the land.
By removing physical barriers to participation, they will grow compassion in a tangible way—ensuring that all residents, including elders and people with disabilities, feel welcome and engaged.
New Kensington Community Development Corporation (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) advances social equity and economic empowerment by nurturing and creating opportunities for residents to live in, and actively shape, their neighborhoods of choice.
In 2021, NKCDC successfully transformed two spaces along Kensington Avenue and will now transform a third space. Transforming the lot into a garden, activating it with positive programming, and increasing community members’ ownership of the space will further NKCDC's “anchors” plan to revitalize Kensington Avenue as a welcoming, safe space for community members to gather and connect.
Rothenberg Rooftop Garden (Cincinnati, Ohio)
The Rothenberg Rooftop Garden’s mission is to enhance students’ development of critical thinking, science, math, and literacy skills through hands-on application of the classroom curriculum.
With their current garden space on the rooftop of their partner school, they will now expand into a vacant lot, extending their roots in the neighborhood. The area will also serve as a space for both community gatherings and educational activities.
Urban Harvest, Inc. (Houston, Texas)
The mission of Urban Harvest is to be a catalyst in transforming food accessibility in Greater Houston. They aim to achieve this by fostering strong partnerships with local farmers and gardeners, operating vibrant Farmers' Markets, initiating mobile markets, and providing comprehensive garden education.
They will transform a vacant lot in the Lawndale neighborhood into a vibrant community garden to address food insecurity, foster environmental stewardship, and create a space for connection and education. In an area with limited access to fresh, affordable produce and green space, the garden will provide opportunities for neighbors to grow their food, share knowledge, and build community resilience. It will also serve as a model for how vacant urban land can be transformed into thriving, educational, and environmentally sound spaces that benefit the entire neighborhood.
We Got This (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
We Got This is working to transform vacant lots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, while giving young people in and around the 53206 zip code a paid opportunity to make their neighborhood a better place to grow up in by caring for their physical spaces and providing resources to the community.
Currently, they work in 15 formally vacant lots, and the lot they will transform is a corner lot with a couple of raised beds and a lot more space to grow into.
Yonkers YMCA (Yonkers, New York)
The YMCA of Yonkers is committed to diversity and inclusion for all. They are focused on uplifting their community through the positive development of youth, promotion of healthy living, and fulfilling their social responsibility.
The vacant lot they will transform is currently an area where trash is dumped, and they envision creating a garden full of possibilities. This new garden will be a part of the existing network of twelve community gardens that provide food and horticultural experiences, and are also essential community spaces that bring residents together.