Renee
Renee Keitt is a grower, seed saver, master composter, and is currently a tea practitioner. She weaves connections, sharing knowledge and resources to create, engage, support, and maintain communities. She is currently a Garden Manager at Kelly Street Garden where she has overseen the creation of a community apothecary and mushroom chamber. She is also a land steward at Diversity Edible Farm Garden, Lydia’s Magic Garden, La Finca del Sur, and New Roots Community Farm. Renee is a former HEAL School of Political Leadership fellow, a graduate of Farm School NYC, and she studied housing, community organizations, nonprofit leadership, and public policy at the CUNY School of Labor and Union Studies. Her focus is the intersection of food, housing, nature and the built environment.
When she is able to find a moment of respite from all that she does, Renee finds beauty in the seen and unseen world that influences the life of plants and the plants themselves. She incorporates this into her artwork through fabric design, screenprinting, and computer art.
Renee joined PPAC in 2022 and has quickly become a pillar of our cooperative. She currently leads the Skylight Farming Lab with Seeds to Soil at the Prime Produce guildhall, where she is developing new approaches to both growing and organizing-around-growing food in urban environments. She is actively seeking collaborators and happy to mentor people interested in her practice so long as they have the time and sweat to contribute to the plants and mushrooms she lovingly stewards.
