Urban Herb Walk

Realize the wealth of the medicinal plants of Prospect Park with two guides who have more than a decade of experience! This urban plant walk will focus on learning how to identify medicinals growing within an urban setting, while discussing how these plants contribute to our healthy and well-being. Bring a notebook and wear appropriate clothing for being outdoors for 2 hours.

This is part 1 of a three-part series. Parts 2 and 3 will be offered on Wednesday, Nov 10 and Wednesday Nov 17. The three classes can be taken independently.

Cost Will be $15-25 sliding scale, and $60 for all three classes.

Ben Schwartz is a grower and food justice activist specializing in medicinal herbs and teas. He founded and currently co-runs Wassaic Community Farm now in its third year, located in Wassaic, NY. He works with farmers’ market customers and CSA members both locally and in the South Bronx to supply their herbal needs and address issues of food justice. He first started working with wild herbs as a teenager under John Young, the first student of Tom Brown at the Wilderness Awareness school. Ben led his first wild and medicinal plant walk at 18 and has learned from many herbalists—from the late Frank Cooke “Green Man” to Robert Eidis of the North Carolina Goldenseal and Ginseng Farm. Ben has grown and harvested herbs from the South Bronx to Honduras, as well as the Harlem Valley, NY. wassaiccommunityfarm.wordpress.com.



Lauren Giambrone is an herbalist practicing western herbal medicine with a harm reductionist approach. In 2008, she apprenticed at the Northeast School of Botanical Medicine and interned at the Ithaca Free Clinic, an integrative community health clinic offering free health-care services to all. Lauren has assisted an acupuncturist & herbalist in clinical practice, provided harm reduction, nutrition and wellness services to homeless youth in lower Manhattan, and assisted the medicinal herbs growing effort at Wassaic Community Farm. For the past four years, she has also been organizing with the Rock Dove Collective, a community health-exchange network that works to transform how health care is accessed. Lauren recently moved to a farm in the Hudson Valley where she continues to wildcraft and grow medicinal herbs, offer consultations and workshops, and co-host a radio show discussing health and the politics of healing. She recently started a small herbal medicine company, Good Fight Herb Co., which can be found at stores and farmers’ markets in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, Millerton and Hudson, NY, and online at www.goodfightherbco.com. Lauren believes strongly in the importance of self-care and the role that herbal medicine plays in creating access to health services and education.