05/04/2026
"Not many people know that the most talked-about moment of King Charles III's entire state visit to the United States in late April 2026 did not happen at a state banquet, a congressional address, or a meeting with heads of finance at Rockefeller Center. It happened on a city block in Harlem where a boy, wearing a New York Knicks varsity jacket, stood next to the King of England and planted a small lavender seedling, and when a royal aide asked the boy what he wanted to name his plant, he thought about it very seriously and said: 'Steph Curry.' The room, or rather the open sky above the garden, erupted in laughter. That is the magic of Harlem Grown, the nonprofit that Tony Hillery built from an abandoned, rubbish-filled lot in 2011 into a network of fourteen thriving urban farms that today grow nearly six thousand pounds of organic produce every year, all given to the Harlem community completely without charge. Hillery was not a farmer. He was not an activist. He was a businessman who had owned a fleet of limousines, lost everything in the 2008 financial crisis, and found his way back to purpose through a kindergarten class, a neglected garden, and a tiny girl named Nevaeh who told him to plant something. From thirty-eight pounds of produce in that very first season to a full ecosystem of in-school and after-school programs, summer camps, mentorships, cooking demonstrations with a mobile teaching kitchen, free weekly farm stands, and a solar-powered vertical hydroponic garden that uses ninety-eight percent less water than traditional outdoor growing, Harlem Grown has become one of the most extraordinary community organizations in America. Harlem Grown CEO Tony Hillery, standing in the same garden where it all began, watched a reigning monarch kneel in the soil beside his children and said: 'This moment is bigger than Harlem Grown. It speaks to the shared values between communities across the globe.'
