Cultivate Tomorrow's Green Leaders

Cultivate Tomorrow's Green Leaders!

New Urban students harvesting from their schoolyard farm as part of their Youth Take Action class. Photo by Schoolyard Farms.

Earlier this year, we launched our second Schoolyard Farm at New Urban High School. The farm is thriving, students are learning how to grow their own food and eating fresh, healthy produce. Now we're ready to expand our high-quality hands-on programs at the school. In the spring of 2017, we will kickstart a job-training program at New Urban. We will train students in basic job-readiness, horticulture, outdoor education and food production through hands-on lessons and internships on their school farm and at our sister farm at Candy Lane Elementary.

There is a need in our community for meaningful job-training for our youth, and farm-based job-training offers so many benefits beyond technical job skills. On the farm, students learn how to care for the environment, their surrounding community and are likely to be more engaged with their school. We need to foster programs that provide these opportunities for youth now more than ever. You can help do that.

What We Need

We need funds for staff time to implement the program and for stipends for the youth farm and garden educator interns. Our goal of $7,500 is based on our ability to raise that amount in previous years and will cover 50% of the cost of the program. We will seek grants and business sponsorships to fund the remaining costs.

The job-training program is Phase I of our goal toward cultivating tomorrow’s green leaders. The job-training program will offer interested students classes in work-readiness, horticulture, outdoor education pedagogy and food production. Students who complete these classes will be able to apply their skills through hands-on paid internships in small-scale farming or outdoor education.

Once we establish Phase I of this program, we will launch Phase II with the development of a micro-enterprise training program for youth. The micro-enterprise program will enhance the existing job-training program by teaching youth how to take an agricultural product, develop it into a value-added product (like jam or hot sauce, for example) and take it to market. Once we launch Phase II, the job training and micro-enterprise programs will be self-sustained through sales of the school-grown produce and of the value-added products. Once the programs are self-sustaining, we will replicate them at other Portland-metro high schools, creating opportunities for more kids to lead healthy, productive lives.

Why your help matters

Right now, there’s a greater need than ever before for job-training programs for at-risk youth. The Congressional Research Service’s report on Vulnerable Youth: Employment and Job Training Programs tells us that, “in an increasingly globalized society...there is strong interest in ensuring that today’s young people have the educational attainment and employment experience needed to become highly skilled workers, contributing taxpayers, and successful participants in civic life. Challenges in the economy and among certain youth populations, however, have heightened concern among policymakers that some young people may not be prepared to fill these roles. The employment levels for youth under age 25 have declined markedly in recent years, including in the wake of the 2007-2009 recession. Certain young people—such as high school dropouts, current and former foster youth, and other at-risk populations—face challenges in completing school and entering the workforce.”

Most students at New Urban are vulnerable or at-risk. As a district alternative charter school, New Urban serves a transient population of students who often are struggling to connect to a positive academic self image. 34% of students receive special education services and 73% of the student population is considered low-income based on their eligibility for free or reduced school lunch. The school serves many students with anxiety disorders and learning disabilities. Many students transfer to New Urban to be a part of a smaller school community where they can receive more specialized instruction and mentoring. This non-traditional high school environment cultivates an active learning community that supports students with special needs. Therefore, the Schoolyard Farm and hands-on job-training program are a perfect fit for the student population; who tend to respond positively to project-based lessons and hands-on learning.

Donate generously to give students at New Urban High School and beyond a chance to live their most productive life!

Make an even greater impact by creating a peer-to-peer fundraising page (click on the blue “Create a Fundraising Page” button on the right side of the site)

About Schoolyard Farms

Schoolyard Farms' pilot farm at Candy Lane Elementary. Photo by Meaghin Kennedy Photography.

Schoolyard Farms is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that increases the health of the community by teaching kids how to grow nutritious food that goes from their schoolyard to their plate. We are the first organization in Oregon partnering with public schools to build working farms on their schoolyards that can feed their school and community. We use social enterprise to do this: we sell the produce from our farms to Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) members, the school cafeteria and local restaurants; these sales go back into the farm, allowing us to sustain our operations.

In 2012, we successfully piloted our first farm at Candy Lane Elementary in Milwaukie, OR where we built and manage a one-acre production farm that serves as an outdoor classroom and a source of fresh produce for the community. We teach bi-weekly garden-based lessons to every Candy Lane student; hold monthly tastings of school-farm grown produce; provide farm field trips for neighboring schools; host a farm-based kids summer camp; and grow thousands of pounds of produce for our CSA members and the school cafeteria. You can read about our work at Candy Lane here or here. In February 2016, we broke ground on our second schoolyard farm at New Urban High School.

One day, we envision a schoolyard farm at every school!

Students engaging with their farm at Candy Lane Elementary. Photo by Meaghin Kennedy Photography.