Follow the Drinking Gourd Gala 2018

Run in conjunction with the Urban Growers Collective annual fundraising gala, “Follow the Drinking Gourd" being held on Thursday, October 4th, at Theatre on the Lake, our online auction provides bidders with one-of-a-kind experiences.

Proceeds from “Follow the Drinking Gourd" go specifically toward training, educating, and providing jobs to over 300 teens and 30 African American and Latinx men with limited employment options; to grow and provide food to over 11,000 people facing food insecurity and diet related illness; provide long-term land access and technical assistance for beginning farmers, focusing on farmers from 'food desert' communities; and lead garden classroom education and provide produce to over 150 preschoolers and their families 


This year, our goal is to raise $10,000 through our online auction to support the educational and outreach programs of Urban Growers Collective.

These auction packages are truly one-of-a-kind and you won't find these experiences anywhere else. So please, bid early and bid often!

Our Mission: Rooted in growing food, we cultivate nourishing environments which support health, economic development, healing and creativity through urban agriculture.

Urban Growers Collective (UGC) was founded by Laurell Sims and Erika Allen in the fall of 2017. Our approach is to demonstrate and support development of community-based food systems where produce is grown, prepared, and distributed within neighborhoods. In this way, communities help themselves by learning how to provide for their own needs in a sustainable manner.

In addition to farming on 11-acres in Chicago, Urban Growers Collective focuses on two key areas: food access and education. To address food access, we operate the Fresh Moves Mobile Markets, a program that transformed three buses into farmers’ markets on wheels and sells fresh, culturally appropriate food on the West and Southside of Chicago. Our eduction programs include youth employment, farmer incubation and training, job-readiness for hard-to-employ adults, a head-start preschool farm, as well as urban agriculture and equity building workshops and events.