ABOUT GROWING GREEN
Our focus
Fund, Implement, Volunteer and Advocate
Develop and support agrivoltaics and hydroponics projects in community gardens within food deserts, combining renewable energy with sustainable agriculture to enhance food security and environmental resilience. Engage students and community members in hands-on STEM education, fostering knowledge in clean energy, sustainable farming, and climate science.
Through structured volunteer programs, mobilize individuals to actively participate in maintaining community gardens in communities facing food insecurity. Strengthen community engagement by hosting workshops, mentorship programs, and collaborative initiatives that empower local residents with skills in agriculture, technology, and sustainability.
Additionally, advocate for climate policies that promote equitable access to clean energy, regenerative agriculture, and environmental justice, ensuring long-term systemic change in underserved communities.
2026-2027
Team
Sarah Bendok
Founder and Mentor
Wynn Gorcya
Operations Coordinator + Build Team Engineer
Sallie Choi
Education Lead
Bowden Brigham
Build Team Engineer
Turner Ashby
Build Team Lead Engineer
Mary Bartolino
Connector Team Co-lead + Education
Aariya Singh
Connector Team + Support & Funding Team
Emerson Schultz
Connector Team Co-lead
Isabella Franco
Support & Funding Team + Education
Steven Ear
Build Team Engineer
As our population grows, the need for new agricultural technologies drastically increases, as we need more efficient ways to produce more crops without degrading our planet and overusing our natural resources. That is why at Growing Green, our primary goal is to promote and implement renewable technologies that will positively affect agriculture by making it more sustainable. We strive to educate our community on the importance of sustainable agriculture and help local farmers and organizations develop, implement, and fund these renewable technologies.
ABOUT
GROWING GREEN
Growing Green is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that focuses on improving agriculture while decreasing our negative impact on the environment. Inspired by volunteering at community gardens and working with organizations such as Tiger Mountain Foundation, Sarah Bendok, as a freshman in high school, founded Growing Green in 2022 . “We saw that farmers put so much effort and hard work into improving their farms and growing food just to take home meager earnings as crop yields decrease with worsening environmental conditions.
We have executed several agrivoltaics projects in the middle of South Phoenix’s food desert to promote and provide healthy food choices to individuals, food banks, farmers markets and school cafeterias. These projects will not only help the local community but will also set an example for commercial, family, and community farms around the country to adopt Agrivoltaics. We are also promoting agrivoltaics to be adopted in schools across Arizona while developing curriculum resources with our partners.
