The seed for the Cooperative Gardens Commission was planted with a post on Instagram, March 18th, 2020, days after COVID-19 shutdowns began. The first line blared “Corona Victory Gardens!” beneath photos of old propaganda posters from both world wars, followed by a brief polemic calling for people to grow more food this year — to create “victory gardens” to feed people during our coming fight against the virus — and an invitation to a conference call two days later to initiate an organized “Corona Victory Gardens” effort. I thought it was a good idea, but I did not anticipate the outpouring of support and excitement that followed.

Since the beginning of CGC, a major focus has been facilitating resource-sharing toward helping more people grow more food. In the early days, we proposed using existing online platforms (especially craigslist) and a novel hashtag (#coopgardens) to help people find others in their communities offering free resources. By early summer we put a resource-sharing map front and center on our website (www.CoopGardens.com), thanks to the work of an ad hoc group organizers. Anyone with gardening, farming, or food-processing/preparing resources can put themselves on the map, so anyone in the US who comes to the CGC website will be able to find someone nearby who can help them grow food.