Recipient Organization
Youth Farm and Market Project
128 West 33rd Street, Suite 2
Minneapolis,MN 55408
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
The Northside Youth Greenhouse is a creative way of approaching food security in North Minneapolis, utilizing quality youth development and community organizing to effectively impact systems change in education, community engagement, and access to healthier food options. Through this project, our goals are to 1) Support a healthy Northside community by creating access to diverse healthy food options and creating safe spaces centered around food, and 2) Develop social entrepreneurial skills and knowledge among youth participants, including youth development skills (leadership, facilitation, and project management), community engagement skills, and workforce readiness skills.The Northside Youth Greenhouse will combine a 1,700 square foot greenhouse with an adjacent 1,700 square foot headhouse to be used as a work center and gathering space. The greenhouse will be a home for youth-led community collaboration and growing. We will welcome partners into this space, host programs for students, and grow food while also building out our program model to include youth social entrepreneurship. Most importantly, it will be a safe space where trusting cross-cultural and cross- generational relationships can be developed and fostered while engaging community members in defining solutions to food insecurity.As youth develop strong partnerships with local schools, businesses, organizations, and residents and build skills through attending and facilitating classes, they will work to address food access challenges and opportunities within their own neighborhoods by growing and distributing plant starts and fresh, local produce.
Animal Health Component
(N/A)
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
The Northside Youth Greenhouse aims to achieve two goals: Support a healthy Northside community by creating access to diverse healthy food options and creating safe spaces centered around food and develop sopcial entrepreneurial skills and knowledge among youth participants including youth development skills (leadership, facilitation, and project management skills), community engagement skills, and workforce readiness skills).Goal #1: Support a healthy Northside community by creating access to diverse healthy food options and creating safe spaces centered around food.Objectives:(1) Increase understanding of basic food skills such as production, preparation, and knowledge of the food system among youth and adults (100 Youth Farmers and All Stars engaged in greenhouse outside of school, 275 Youth Farmers and All Stars engaged in greenhouse as part of school, 1,000 community members engaged in events/classes at greenhouse/community gardens - 2 community events per year and 2 community classes per year)(2) Increase access to and consumption of fruits and vegetables among community members (5,000 pounds of produce grown and distributed to 5 different distribution outlets over 4 years, 100,000 seedlings grown, distributed, and/or sold to community and school garden spaces over 4 years, 6 small farm spaces managed/co-managed)(3) Increase equitable access to experiential STE(A)M education opportunities for youth (275 Youth Farmers and All Stars engaged in greenhouse as part of school)Goal #2: Develop social entrepreneurial skills and knowledge among youth participants, including youth development skills (leadership, facilitation, and project management), community engagement skills, and workforce readiness skills.Objectives:(1) Youth gain/increase leadership, work readiness, facilitation, project management, and communication skills (develop - business plan, 3 social enterprise projects, evaluation plan and report, growing and harvesting protocols, trainings, and a greenhouse operations model that includes food safety protocols)(2) Youth gain social emotional learning skills and tools, self-esteem, sense of belonging, positive view of personal future, sense of purpose, and personal power(3) Youth are equipped with experiences and connected to networks that lead to post-secondary job training, education programs, and jobs (10 community and institutional partners engaged, 35 trainings developed and executed)(4) Youth Farm creates sustainable 'green' jobs in North Minneapolis for Northside youth and young adults (20 Project LEAD trained and employed, 5 Farm Stewards trained and employed)(5) Project is supported in part through earned revenue (monetary and in-kind) (social enterprise model)(6) Youth-led partnership model created (partnership model)
Project Methods
The Northside Youth Greenhouse will combine a 1,700 square foot greenhouse with an adjacent 1,700 square foot headhouse to be used as a work center and gathering space. The greenhouse will be a home for youth-led community collaboration and growing. We will welcome partners into this space, host programs for students, and grow food while also building out our program model to include youth social entrepreneurship. Most importantly, it will be a safe space where trusting cross-cultural and cross- generational relationships can be developed and fostered while engaging community members in defining solutions to food insecurity.The following efforts will be used to achieve our outcomes:Rebuild greenhouse;Facilitate youth and community input in design of exterior and interior of greenhouse and food distribution model;Fully staff project;Develop greenhouse operating systems;Grow plant starts and food in greenhouse;Distribute plant starts to community gardens and community partners in North Minneapolis;Manage or co-manage community farm spaces - includes schools gardens and community farm spaces;Distribute food;Host community events and classes in order to create opportunities for participation in;Host farming workshops for community residents;Develop culturally responsive hands-on seed to plate nutrition education programs and/or curriculum for children ages 9-13 including:Develop and facilitate classroom and garden food, nutrition, youth development, and agricultural education opportunities for elementary, middle, and high school youth at partner schools;Host cooking, greenhouse, and gardening classes on-line and in-person;Expand Project LEAD and Farm Steward programs - hire and train LEAD and Stewards;Conduct youth led evaluation;Develop Business Plan as part of youth social entrepreneurship model;Expand on current and develop new partnerships;Work with partners to develop and execute trainings for youth and young adults focused on:Greenhouse OperationsBasic plant science, especially in the areas of community food systems and community gardensBusiness planning.At Youth Farm, we approach evaluation with the belief that people know how to best care for themselves, their families, and their communities and youth development and food access work should be focused on creating avenues and eliminating barriers for people to do this. Our evaluation is aimed at understanding what role Youth Farm can play in creating these avenues while supporting the development of youth as leaders. Evaluation takes place in the spaces we have co-created within community. We have seen that gathering in spaces together to dialogue and share stories creates the greatest opportunity for learning. We aim to create an environment that is safe, fun, and supportive so that young people can learn, create bonds, and develop relationships with each other, their mentors, and community members. In our spaces we affirm and uplift the identity of people who are gathered and work to support the physical and mental health of families while creating access to information and resources. All of the spaces we gather in to facilitate programs and learn are within neighborhoods and connected to housing, schools, and community centers.This approach to collecting qualitative data creates opportunities for sharing stories through video, images, art, and dialogue. We gather to reflect after each program opportunity or community event in order to share what we have heard from our fellow community members. In this way, we center equity - making sure the people most impacted by food insecurity have a voice in determining what strategies are needed to address it and making sure we use a multitude of methods to capture their input, reducing barriers that exist within other evaluation methods. For this project, we will also collect quantitative data that tells us how much food we distribute, how many people receive food, and how many people we engage at community events and classes. Utilizing multiple ways to collect different kinds of data tells a robust story of the impact of our work that is rooted in the values and lived experiences of the participants. Through our evaluation we aim to understand the following towards our outcomes:Number of plants distributed and pounds of produce distributed. Who received plants and food.Number of farm spaces managedNumber of youth and community members engagedNumber of community events and garden daysNumber of youth engaged and type of youth engagement opportunities If community members and youth feel safe in Youth Farm spaces and identify what factors into feelings of safety and what threatens safety.Where community members and youth report accessing vegetables and identifying barriers to access.What food skills have been gained. What factors contribute to the learning of food skills.Assessing our outreach strategies - Are we using a diverse set of strategies? Are we reaching who we name we should? How do we know?Where young people built connections in their community and what the impact was for them.What leadership skills youth learned and what factors contributed to their learning.Who is accessing our programs? What are barriers to access?If youth gain social emotional learning skills and tools including self-esteem, sense of belonging, positive view of personal future, sense of purpose, and personal power and what factors contribute to these. We will use the following tools to collect information:VideosPicturesAttendance Records - community members, youthFood distribution data - forms and spreadsheetPlant start data - spreadsheetProgram plans that track number of events and garden daysReflectionsNotes that include weekly themesYouth self reflection (one/two times per year)Interview recordsReflectionsWeekly themesYouth written self reflection (one/two times per year)Youth attendance recordsProgram plans that track type of youth engagement opportunities