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Green Bronx Machine builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development.
Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, our school-based model using urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators grows healthy schools to transform communities that are fragmented and marginalized to neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving.
We believe that healthy students help drive healthy schools, and that healthy schools are at the heart of healthy communities.
We envision growing healthy communities where those who are "apart from" will become "part of" new solutions that benefit 100% of society; a world where people do not have to leave their community to live learn and earn in a better one.
Together, we can grow something greater! Ready, set, GROW!
Stephen Ritz is the Founder of Green Bronx Machine and self-proclaimed CEO – Chief Eternal Optimist – of Bronx County. With 20+ years of experience as an educator and administrator, Stephen believes that students shouldn’t have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one. Stephen has spent most of his professional life helping move generations of students into spheres of personal and academic successes they have never imagined. While reclaiming and rebuilding the Bronx, Stephen’s extended student and community family have grown more than 165,000 pounds of vegetables while generating extraordinary academic performance and living wage jobs. Believing that we are limited only by our own imaginations and that we are ALL Amer-I-Cans, Stephen is excited to lead Green Bronx Machine to achieve even more at the National Health, Wellness and Learning Center at CS 55. Stephen loves people, purpose and possibilities. He wakes up everyday excited to go to school, teach students, and build programs that will impact the lives of those he cares about for years to come. He wears a big hat, spiffy bow-tie and perpetually says, “Si se puede!”
His favourite vegetables are bok choy and arugula.
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