Who We Are

Metro Blooms envisions a just future of thriving communities where all people connect with and care for the land, water, and diverse life around them.

Mission

Metro Blooms partners with communities to nurture and support thriving ecosystems, land, and water. We practice shared leadership and care, moving toward environmental justice.

Values

Environmental Justice

We advocate alongside communities impacted by injustice, recognizing everyone’s rights to clean air, land and water.
Care for Water, Land, and Wildlife

We are in kinship with the natural world, acknowledging that people and the environment are tied together. We care for clean water, healthy soil, and wildlife.
Collaborative Learning and Shared Knowledge

We all benefit from diverse ways of knowing, listening, teaching, and learning with each other. We learn from Indigenous peoples on whose lands we live and work.
Shared Leadership

We share power with each other and the communities we partner with, including creating leadership opportunities for young adults.
Care for Community

We respond to community needs, and build long-term relationships based on compassion and collaboration.
Repair of Social, Economic, and Environmental Harm

We acknowledge past and present harms, taking caring action for the people and ecosystems experiencing those harms to move towards systems change.

We are comprised of:

Metro Blooms, a non-profit, carries out our community engagement work

Blue Thumb, Metro Blooms’ education program and a statewide partnership

Metro Blooms Design+Build, a for-profit landscaping company that supports our non-profit

Metro Blooms Exists In Order To:

Protect and support the inherent value of wildlife, clean water, air and soil.
Deepen connections to each other and to nature.
Work with impacted communities towards their own power, goals and solutions.
Share our expertise and inspire environmental action.
Facilitate access to clean air, clean water, healthy landscapes and just living environments.
Connect environmental and justice issues, recognizing the relationships between environmental, social, and economic experiences.

We Accomplish This Core Purpose By:

Prioritizing and supporting opportunities for silenced voices most impacted by injustices to be meaningfully involved in environmental projects.
Challenging unsustainable landscaping norms through teachings and practices that support ecosystem health and honor all life, land and water.
Designing, creating, and restoring native habitat, sustainable landscapes and green stormwater infrastructure.
Grounding our work in equity, racial, environmental and social justice.
Listening and advocating alongside community members to reduce barriers to environmental engagement.
Connecting people & organizations to each other, uplifting community knowledge, and sharing accessible resources.
Building relationships and partnerships across constituencies.
Supporting and inspiring others, especially young people, to lead environmental work and grow in environmental career pathways.
Pursuing financial sustainability.

Equitable Engagement:

At Metro Blooms, we work to create the conditions for all of a community’s members to be meaningfully involved in environmental improvement projects protecting clean water and habitat. We carry out our work using principles of equitable engagement and environmental justice. We intentionally partner with communities that include people of color, lower-income neighborhoods and rental communities.

We all have a stake in working together to address the most difficult environmental challenges of our time. We need as many people as possible to be part of the solution. Our work is based on the belief that everyone has a right to clean air, land and water, but we know that not everyone has the same access. This needs to change. Now more than ever, we confront the reality of inequity in our lives based on unacknowledged privilege and institutionalized racism. Learn more on our Environmental Justice page.

Meet Our Teams

Our Community Relations team practices equitable engagement centered in intentionality, community power, connection, and resource redistribution.We believe in restoring land and healing our relationships to nature and each other.
Our Education team coordinates Blue Thumb partners to offer trainings and DIY resources on pollinator-friendly plantings and stormwater management practices for residents across Minnesota.
Our awesome Design+Build crews install resilient landscapes and restore habitats, focusing on clean water strategies and native plants.
Our skilled Design+Build designers work with our Metro Blooms teams to re-envision outdoor spaces that meet community needs.