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Green Youth Farm

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Education — Community Gardening

Green Youth Farm

 

Program Components

In addition to actual gardening time and education, each Green Youth Farm session combines field trips, nutrition education, community service, entrepreneurship, art workshops to create a richer educational and life experience for each of the participants.

  

Field Trips

Students take at least three daytrips during the summer to meet professionals in the field. Field trips include the Chicago Botanic Garden, where Garden professionals talk to students about a range of potential careers, including landscape design, horticultural therapy, and greenhouse production. Field trips for the 2007 season were:

Green City Market Michael Fields Agriculture Institute

Pembroke Farms Chicago Botanic Garden

Nutrition Education

Nutrition education is a primary program concern, and students develop an awareness of where food comes from, an appreciation for the energy and resources that go in to food production, and the benefits of eating locally produced, organic foods. At the same time, they are taught how to make healthy decisions about food. Each participant is required to taste each item that is grown at their site, and they often discover and enjoy foods they have not tried before. Sixteen-year-old Dexter Sullivan, a North Lawndale Green Youth Farm participant, admitted: "I didn't think anything was going to grow, but everything came up overnight. We planted the typical tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and cucumbers, but learned about vegetables we had never heard of like cucumber melons."

Students at Green Youth Farm sites benefit from the tutelage and mentorship of staff who share a passion for great food. Coached by the staff, student teams prepare food harvested from the garden and serve it to their peers. Through this experience, they learn about nutritional benefits and food portions while discovering new food interests and career opportunities.

Community Service

One of the program's greatest successes has been fostering a sense of civic pride and community responsibility in participants. Says one student, Theresa King: "The garden has changed my life in a good way in my mind, because I never felt like helping people out before." Students host "after-market" or "u-pick" days when residents may help themselves to fresh produce, and they have contributed surplus produce to the Chicago Food Depository and the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Each year, each farm hosts an open house featuring a community lunch to welcome residents. The students also participate regularly in other outreach events, like Giving Garden Day, an event designed to inspire community gardens and home gardeners to donate excess produce to local food banks, soup kitchens, and service organizations, and Eat In, Act Out week, a series of activities to promote eating locally-produced foods and preparing healthy meals in the home. Students also assist in local community gardens including the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) garden in Waukegan and the African Heritage Garden on Chicago's West Side.

Entrepreneurship

The program also seeks to develop an entrepreneurial spirit and skills among its young students. Currently Garden staff are implementing a winter entreperneurship club in which some program participants meet weekly from November through May to investigate farm-related business projects, guided by a curriculum developed by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). Using the NFTE approach, a total of five students from the summer program are developing their business concept: North Lawndale students are in the process of developing a food product that they will then produce and sell at farmer markets, restaurants, or other retail food outlets. Requiring significant critical and creative thinking, these authentic entrepreneurial experiences are bringing a new dimension to the Green Youth Farm.

Art Workshops

As an enrichment to the farm work, each farm also participates in the creation of a garden art project. Students spend a significant portion of every week planning a large art installation at each farm with staff and local artists. Former projects have included murals, natural trellises, a cob oven, and mosaic containers.