Upcoming Event:
April 10, 2025 | 11:30 am - 1 pm | Rumely Historic Event Space
Special Guest Speaker: Chef Amber Williams, Author of Surviving The Food Desert
Please join us for a delicious luncheon as we celebrate The Giving Grove and the profound impact of its affiliate programs on communities across the United States. This year, we’re thrilled to welcome chef and author Amber Williams as our featured speaker. To learn more about Chef Amber, click here.
Special thanks to Presenting Sponsors Jack & Glenna Wylie Foundation and The McDonnell Foundation.
Where: Rumely Historic Event Space 1222 W 12th St. KCMO
When: 11:30 am- 1 pm
Chef Amber Williams
Previous Special Events:
April 13, 2023 | 11:30 am - 1 pm | The Magnolia - Brookside
Special Guest Speaker: Celebrity Chef Pyet DeSpain
Please join us for a delicious meal as we celebrate The Giving Grove and its affiliate programs’ impact on communities across the United States. Celebrity Chef Pyet DeSpain (winner of Next Level Chef & Kansas City native) will be joining us to speak about ancestral food, cooking techniques, and tips for incorporating them into our lives. Affiliate Milestone Awards will be presented to Giving Grove partners Kansas City Community Gardens, Seed St. Louis, & The Big Garden.
Where: The Magnolia- Brookside | 624 East 63rd Street, Kansas City, MO
When: 11:30 am- 1 pm
Tickets are Required. (Orchard stewards are eligible for discounted tickets. Please contact us to receive coupon code.)
Click to view photos from the event and a cooking demonstration of a Pyet custom dish!
September 15, 2022 | 4-6 pm | Plexpod Westport Commons
Join The Giving Grove and Love, Tito’s for a harvest celebration in The Giving Grove’s newest national orchard.
Press your own cider to take home while you learn about the mission of the orchards and how you can make an impact on hunger by volunteering with The Giving Grove.
Following the tour, sip on complimentary harvest-themed Love, Tito’s cocktails in the trendy Plexpod Westport Common’s Annex event space.
Custom Giving Grove Cocktail kits and swag will be available for purchase!
When: September 15, 2022 | 4-6pm
Where: Plexpod Westport Commons, 300 East 39th St, Kansas City, MO 64111
The orchard is east of the south parking lot with an entrance on 38th Street. The cocktail hour will begin immediately after the tour and cider press activity in the Plexpod annex.
Who: You, your friends and colleagues
How much: This is a complimentary event, but registration is encouraged. Two drink tickets are included with your registration
Unfortunately, the event is now full! However, The Giving Grove will be hosting another orchard happy hour in the near future.
Please submit your email address below to be the first to register!
This event is brought to you by The Giving Grove!
The Giving Grove supports neighborhood volunteers in planting and caring for fruit trees, nut trees, and berry brambles that improve the urban environment, increase tree canopy and provide a sustainable source of free, organically-grown food for neighborhoods facing high rates of food insecurity. To find out more, click here.
Special thanks!
Thank you to Love, Tito’s for sponsoring this event and other orchard projects nationwide!
On August 4,2022, The Giving Grove hosted a conversation with activist, advocate, and farmer Karen Washington. Click here to watch and learn about Karen’s passion for encouraging people to grow food, her use of the term “food apartheid,” her advice for nonprofits working in urban agriculture – and her favorite fruit tree.
Meet the speaker…
Karen has been a resident of the Bronx for more than 26 years, although in 2015, she began living part-time in Orange County, NY, near a 5-acre cooperative farm she runs with three other women. Since 1985 Karen has been a community activist, striving to make New York City a better place to live. As a community gardener and board member of the New York Botanical Gardens, Karen worked with Bronx neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens. As an advocate, she stood up and spoke out for garden protection and preservation.
As a member of the La Familia Verde Community Garden Coalition, she helped launch a City Farms Market, bringing garden fresh vegetables to her neighbors. She also co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization of volunteers committed to building networks and community support for growers in both urban and rural settings. In 2012 Ebony magazine voted her one of the 100 most influential African Americans in the country, and in 2014 she received the James Beard Leadership Award.
View her TEDx Talk here.