Annual Nomadica Mini Meadow Grant Winners
2025 Grant Winners
This year we were able to award three full $500 mini meadow scholarships. Thank you to Rosanne of Rocky Ridge farm for sponsoring a full grant, and to Prairie Nursery for sponsoring a partial grant. With over 500 applications across all contiguous states in the US, it was extremely difficult to pick winners. Thank you to everyone who shared their dreams with us. These are the three 2025 winners.
Thomas Acri
Thomas Acri, Trumbull Agriscience and Biotechnology Center
"I am passionate about restoring native plants to create a healthy, self-sustaining habitat for pollinators and wildlife." - Thomas
Located in Trumbull, Connecticut, Thomas is bringing a mini meadow to the Trumbull Agriscience and Biotechnology Center, where it will serve as an educational tool for students from urban, suburban, and rural backgrounds. As a teacher at the school, Thomas has already introduced his students to native plants through classroom work but now, they will be able to experience biodiversity firsthand.
"For many students, getting outside during class may be their only access to nature. This mini meadow will allow them to observe, interact with, and understand native plants in a way that a textbook never could."
The mini meadow will feature a diverse mix of native species such as milkweed, goldenrod, Joe-Pye weed, New England aster, butterfly weed, and native grasses, all selected to support local pollinators and birds while demonstrating the value of ecological restoration.
Students will be involved in planting and maintaining the meadow, ensuring that the space remains a valuable resource for education and conservation for years to come. Thank you, Thomas, for your dedication to shaping the next generation of environmental stewards!
Allie Mounce – Front-Yard Native Meadow & Seedling Giveaway
"I want to show my neighbors that it’s possible to create space for nature even in small suburban yards." - Allie
In Memphis, Tennessee, Allie is transforming her front yard into a thriving native meadow as a way to inspire her neighborhood to move beyond traditional, high-maintenance lawns. But she’s not stopping there.
Alongside her backyard chicken flock and neighborhood egg stand, she’ll also be stocking her stand with native seedlings and seeds, helping neighbors kickstart their own pollinator-friendly gardens.
"It would be amazing to have a demonstration of what a native yard could look like, right next to my egg stand!"
The mini meadow will feature a diverse mix of native species such as mountain mint, echinacea, wild bergamot, swamp milkweed, coreopsis, bee balm, and native grasses, all selected to thrive in a suburban setting while supporting pollinators.
This project will help bring native gardening into everyday suburban life—one neighbor at a time.
Thank you, Allie, for your dedication to pollinators and for helping spread native gardening beyond your own yard!
Brewster Street Farm, Journey's End Refugee Services
Located in Buffalo, New York, the team at Brewster Street Farm is expanding a native plant garden at an urban farm that provides fresh, locally grown food to food-insecure refugee families. This mini meadow will not only attract pollinators to increase food production but also serve as a public example of how to bring native plants into urban spaces.
"Having a meadow surrounding the farm will encourage pollinators to visit, increase food yields, and provide a much-needed educational space for the community. This project will show how to rewild an urban area and encourage others to replicate it in their own neighborhoods."
The mini meadow will feature a diverse mix of native species such as Echinacea, Butterfly Weed, New England Aster, Little Bluestem, and Coreopsis, all selected to thrive in an urban setting while supporting pollinators.
The farm’s students, staff, and volunteers will be involved in planting and maintaining the meadow, ensuring that it remains a valuable community resource for years to come.
2024 Grant Winner
Eugenia Book
"I’m committed to preserving the native fauna and flora in my area and to supporting habitats for our indigenous and migrating wildlife" - Eugenia
Living on a hill in Texas adjacent to the Monarch Highway, Eugenia resides on a property mostly covered by wild cedar, juniper, and oak forest. She cleared a patch next to her house, an ideal location for a mini-meadow. It is sunny, well-drained, and protected. It has long been her dream to convert this area into a habitat with native plants, particularly to support the migrating monarchs, whose milkweed food supply has significantly dwindled in the region.
"Lots of milkweed would be wonderful, bee balm, bluebonnets, coneflowers, black eyed susan, coreopsis, flax, poppies, blanket flower, joe pye weed, and salvia. We are in the heart of the Monarch migratory corridor, and I’m concerned about the dwindling supply of wild milkweed I see every year," she wrote in her grant application.
The Monarch Highway serves as a crucial migratory route for monarch butterflies, providing a vital pathway as they journey between their breeding grounds in the north and their wintering grounds in Mexico. This mini meadow will serve as a safe haven for pollinators and migrating monarchs for years to come.
Below: Eugenia and a before picture of the soon to be mini meadow.
2023 Grant Winner
Lindbergh Community Garden
A neighborhood established and maintained native pollinator garden located in Fairfield, CT. Follow along with their progress on Instagram @lindberghpollinators
