2025 Impact Report
Our work is built on sustainable, community-led solutions to food access rather than quick fixes. Rooted’s unique position within the community allows us to produce food locally, share it widely, and bring our youngest learners into the conversation early.
Longevity is our lens this year, as we celebrate 25 years of local food production at Troy Farm on Madison’s Northside. That’s also a quarter of a century of stewarding community gardens and decades of food-based education for young people.
It’s this long-term investment of time, resources and trust-building that we are reflecting on as we continue to grow lasting food security with:
- K-5 learners: We grow food literacy, knowledge, and skills to help children make healthy food choices and better understand how food relates to our community.
- Middle school through college: Program participants learn a systems approach to how food, access, and local economy intertwine.
- Adults in our community: We offer opportunities to volunteer on a working farm, grow their own food in a community garden, attend a cooking workshop, or share a meal at a CommUNITY dinner.
We hope you see this impact reflected in these pages, and the beauty of people all across Dane County working together to grow something special. We encourage you to dig into our 2025 Impact Report and hear the voices of our community, see the impact in numbers, and perhaps even find your own story reflected.
If you’d like to share your experience and haven’t yet, please reach out – your voice matters to us!
We couldn’t do this work without YOU.
Thank you for supporting Rooted.
“What brings me joy about Rooted is the sense of community that Rooted is building and has built. The connections that I’ve made with other gardeners has been immensely gratifying. The community connections and also the empowerment that Rooted has given to young people and to chefs, the fact that so many brilliant chefs and now up-and-coming farmers are coming from Rooted is a wonderful asset to our community. Especially the younger people, I hope that gardening gives them a sense of food sovereignty and food justice. I think a lot of people are not familiar with the power that growing our own food and knowing where our food comes from really gives to us.”
-Shadayra Kilfoy-Flores, community gardener & organizer
