Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments

Urban Farm & Youth Program: The organization's urban farm program provides healthy and affordable food to local residents and combats the pervasiveness of urban blight in the downtown region. The urban farm enjoys healthy partnerships with local restaurants and organizations to support its programming. The urban farm produce is available for sale through VINES Farm Share program. A portion of the produce is purchased and used by several local restaurants and another portion is donated to the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW), which distributes the produce to local food pantries and families in need. As part of this program VINES manages growing space in the Town of Conklin for CHOW, on which VINES grows food for both VINES' & CHOW's programs. In addition, VINES runs a Grow Binghamton Youth Program, which is a year-round youth employment program designed for youth, ages fourteen to twenty-one, to build life skills while growing food for the community. Youth also help run the Build a Garden Program through which youth construct and prepare raised garden beds at people's homes and portable garden bags that allow people to safely grow food at their homes while avoiding lead contamination.

Community Gardens: As of the end of 2023, the organization has twenty-two (22) community gardens; sixteen (16) located in the City of Binghamton, two (2) located in the Village of Johnson City, one (1) located in Endwell, one (1) located in the Town of Vestal, and two (2) located in the Village of Endicott. At a community garden, individuals can rent a raised garden bed for their own use for a yearly fee. The garden bed comes built and ready for planting with fertile soil and on-site water as well as access to compost, water, and seeds.

Farm Share: The organization works with local farms to help individuals eat produce that is harvested in the area through a weekly subscription to a box of produce. As part of the program, the organization offers different size subscriptions, income based discounts, flexible payment plans, and provides weekly education to subscribers. As a result of the discounts offered and the additional contributions and grants received to support the program,the organization shows a loss on the sale of the produce but receives sufficient support for the program to cover the loss.