Stephen Ritz is a South Bronx educator and innovator who believes that students shouldn’t have to leave their community to live, learn, and earn in a better one. Moving generations of students into spheres of personal and academic successes which they had never imagined — while reclaiming and rebuilding the Bronx —  Stephen’s extended student and community family have grown more than 40,000 pounds of vegetables in the Bronx while generating extraordinary academic performance.  Stephen was named a Top 10 Finalist for the prestigious $1m Global Teacher Prize in 2015.

Stephen helped earn his school the first ever Citywide Award of Excellence from the NYC Strategic Alliance for Health and directly attributes these results to growing vegetables in school. To reclaim his own health and model good behavior for his students, he lost 100 pounds by eating what he and his students grow. In 2013, The United States Department of State and New York Foreign Press Corps toured representatives from 40 countries across Stephen’s worksites and classrooms. He was selected as a delegate at WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) and as a national Green Apple Education Ambassador for the US Green Building Council and Center for Green Schools. In 2014, Green Bronx Machine celebrated a Best of Green Schools Award — one of only ten recipients across the United States and The National Association of Secondary School Principals cited Stephen’s work and Green Bronx Machine as one of five national exemplars of service-learning. That same year, Stephen’s fourth and fifth grade students accepted a personal invitation from the White House by Chef William Yosses to visit the White House and exchange ideas about food literacy.

Affectionately known as “America’s Favorite Teacher,” Stephen has moved attendance from 40% to 93% daily, helped provide 2,200 youth jobs in the Bronx, and captured the United States EPA Award for transforming mindsets and landscapes in NYC. A strong advocate for Project Based Learning, Stephen is an annual presenter for the Buck Institute and works with school districts and universities across the country. American Teacher: Heroes in the Classroom identified and featured Stephen as one of the top fifty teachers in America. In 2016, he worked to develop a groundbreaking, internationally-certified curriculum which embeds concepts of sustainability, food, energy, and environmental justice aligned to STEM content areas for elementary schools. Stephen and the Green Bronx Machine also brought to life the first-ever independently financed National Health, Wellness, and Learning Center.  Soon thereafter, he partnered with LoyaltyOne in Canada to launch “The Good Food Machine” in 10 elementary schools, modeled after his programs in New York. Stephen presented at The White House twice during 2016.

Stephen has electrified and inspired audiences of all types with his “Si Se Puede” message of hope, urgency, resilience, and Amer-I-Can innovation. His impassioned speeches have resulted in raucous standing ovations from audiences around the world — including the United Nations Social Innovation Summit, the Green Schools National Conference, Innovation Land, American Institute of Architects, and the World Business Forum. He even delivered a keynote address at the Clinton Global Initiative on Earth Day. He has also worked with and consulted for various Fortune 100 / 500 companies. Stephen uses his platform of public speaking to support numerous philanthropic activities locally, nationally, and abroad.