Youth Farm and Market Project

Our youth development curriculum is based on a unique progressive program model that is broken down into four age groups, allowing youth to find increasingly challenging and age appropriate opportunities as they grow older:

Youth Farmers (age 9-11): Throughout the year, Youth Farmers work to master gardening and cooking skills while developing strong interpersonal skills. They also learn about how food choices impact their lives and communities.

All Stars (age 12-13): All Stars take on intentional, specific program and neighborhood leadership roles while focusing on role modeling and cultural responsiveness skills. They also learn about food systems while taking part in the decision-making process surrounding food distribution in each neighborhood.

Project LEAD (age 14-18): Throughout the Project LEAD program, high school-aged youth take part in a school year internship followed by hourly summer employment. Project LEAD participants manage programming for Youth Farmers and All Stars while also designing farms, seeding, planting, weeding, harvesting, and distributing thousands of pounds of fresh produce. Additionally, these young leaders engage their peers, families, and neighbors at community events, actively learning to use food as a tool for change. Through this stage of Youth Farm programming, participants develop mentorship, conflict resolution, leadership, community organizing, and career skills.

Farm Stewards (age 19-24): The Farm Stewards employment program is the final stage of Youth Farm’s progressive program model.

Farm Stewards, who are often Project LEAD graduates, are young adults that Youth Farm supports to become social change leaders and community organizers within their neighborhoods. Throughout this program, Farm Stewards focus on a combination of increasing program opportunities within neighborhoods with high level leadership, building workforce skills, and developing expertise within the context of food, social change, and professional youth development.

Youth Farm has designed the Farm Stewards program to emphasize a more personal and flexible approach to leadership development. We aim to include Farm Stewards at different stages of their personal, educational, and professional development, including those pursuing a long-term career in youth work, students who are earning higher education credit through their Farm Steward employment, and young adults exploring a specific area of Youth Farm’s work in farming, community organizing, nonprofit management, etc.