Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience:Our project has three main target audiences including elementary youth, high school age youth and college students. Programs offered were informal. The elementary and high school students served in this project come from communities traditionally underrepresented in food and agriculture careers from various neighborhoods in Essex County, NJ. Our recruitment efforts focused on underserved school districts of Newark Public Schools, and Essex County Schools of Technology. The elementary students who attended "school-to-farm" field trips participated from the Newark School District, which is the largest district in the state with one of the highest populations of students of color (91.6%) and students qualifying for free or reduced price lunch (82.4%) ("District Summary"). Teenagers from the Essex county Schools of Technology represent multiple municipalities from the greater Newark area. Our college age participants are undergraduate students at Montclair State University. All students are part of the AmeriCorps program. Changes/Problems:Working with an external evaluator has been a great experience but we hit many bumps along the way. Initially we had intended to evaluate our elementary field trips and teen Farmprenuers. Since the start of the project we have had bi-monthly meetings with our evaluator. After much discussion about the best survey tool to use for our field trip we landed on having the evaluator doing an observational assessment. This has been helpful for our team to better learn how to improve the program but does note translate well to demonstrate outcomes or our learning goals. We were able to develop a pre-post survey and focus group for our teen participants. One challenge we faced with survey implementation is that the focus group recording was not translatable. Our evaluator hosted the focus group outdoors and was unable to fully transcribe the recording. Instead of doing the intended coding analysis, she will be sharing highlights from the youth participants. Another challenge we are facing is securing stipends for our Farmprenuers. Initially we planned to work with the county based Youth Workforce program which pays students an hourly rate to participate in a community org over the summer time. This season, the requirements of this program changed, and many of the youth who we had interviewed for the program did not get their paperwork in time for payment. We plan this coming season to solicit other sources of funding to make sure we can provide stipends for our teen Farmprenuers. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our AmeriCorps participants and project staff all participated in the Rutgers Youth Protection and 4-H Positive Youth Development training to prepare them to mentor our youth. AmeriCorps worked along side our farm staff growing and education team, learning all aspects of our Montclair Community Farms program offerings. Our teen Farmprenuers participated in lessons and discussions about environmental justice, food justice and food systems. Teens participated in hands-on learning in the garden, completing daily tasks alongside our growing team. Teens also had the opportunity to serve as mentors to younger youth who participated in summer programming at our farm. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Our program evaluator shared a formative assessment with our project team at our September year 2 kick off meeting. Results shared were integrated into our annual reporting for our Montclair Community Farms coalition. Our team will be doing a greater analysis of the food systems survey data and are working on a case study paper. We hope to have a draft submitted to the Journal of Extension before our grant end. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In year two, we are considering lessons learned from staff reports and our program evaluator to improve our program deliverables. For our field trips, we are working for approval to integrate a small taste test opportunity so youth visitors can try something in the garden (even in the off season). For our Farmprneuers program, we are working on soliciting donations and greater funding to offer stipends for all of our teen participants. We will also be integrating more field trip offerings during the summer. Our program evaluator shared feedback from the Farmprneuer focus group that many of the teens had concerns with the heat and not having enough breaks. This coming year we will change program time not to be in the direct heat and will encouraged more fun cooling off activities. Some challenges that the teens mentioned in our program evaluation is notbeing ready for physical labor and being outdoors and payment not being enough.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? In our initial year we reached over 1258 elementaryyouth, 12 Farmprenuers and 4 AmeriCorps members. Our staff team including AmeriCorps students and our partners at the Montclair History Center hosted 48 classes in the Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 at the Farm. Each class participated in round-robin style learning stations. One station was in the garden where youth were able to meet the farmers, the chickens, and participate in a hands-on activity. Activities coordinated were aligned with the weather and seasons offerings. In Spring 2024, our community partners helped us market the Farmpreneuers program where we interviewed 16 teen applicants. Twelve youth were accepted into the program and 9 youth completed the program. Teens initially participated in virtual meetings in May to learn about food systems topics and local community initiatives. When school let out in June, teens joined our staff team four days a week in the garden. Teens helped to grow the garden and supported our mobile farm stand where we sold our produce grown at the farm to communities in need. Teens also participated in activities related to leadership and environmental justice topics. In our program evaluation the most common response to what participants learned was how to grow and care for crops or plants. Other topics mentioned were chicken care, types of food, and the importance of compost.

Publications