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Chicago Youth Programs |
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Growing Power offers a unique opportunity for families and youth to learn about where their food comes from and how to build a community food system, from the earth up. By connecting youth to food production and cultivation, they will experience life on the farm via hands-on learning in farm maintenance, organic production methods, harvesting and marketing. Youth gain experience in keeping basic farm records, educating and mentoring others, journal writing, creating garden related art, and harvesting and preparing food. Urban farm apprentices work together to cultivate, weed, plant and harvest vegetables; fruit; herbs and flowers that are grown in the allotment gardens and may have the opportunity to work South Shore Cultural Centers’ weekly farmers market. A major focus of our youth programs is to enable effective job/higher education preparedness for young people. Also integral to Growing Power’s youth program, life skills acquisition in the form of work ethic and appropriate work place socialization, follow through on instructions, application of academic readings and discussions throughout the project and consumer education. Using farming as a hands-on teaching tool, young people are challenged both mentally and physically, gaining a broad range of experiences from observation and decision-making to physical fitness and tool usage to aesthetic and culinary appreciation. In addition, youth gain the valuable and unique skill of learning how to produce something, creating a whole host of entrepreneurial opportunities for their futures. Resources such as an urban agriculture farm stand, extended season production green houses, aquaponics, vermiculture and organic soil, compost and other safe soil inputs will provide a one-stop urban agriculture experience for community residents, project partners and visitors to Chicago. Youth Corps Accomplishments 2008
Check out how our Youth Corps composts. Click here to see our video.
We also have a step team video. Our step team is just one way we integrate food and fitness into our curriculum. Let the beets beat on!
Chicago Youth Corps 2007
Youth
learn all aspects of farming during our year-round youth program. In the spring, youth learn how to seed crops in the greenhouse and how to
design a garden. During the summer,
youth learn all aspects of farming, from building beds, to seeding, to
harvesting. In the fall, youth
learn how to put the garden to bed for the winter. While growing food links all the three cycles, each session focuses on a
different aspect of creating a community food system. In the spring, youth learn about community asset mapping and community
outreach (recruiting gardeners for the Chicago Avenue Garden). Summer focuses on value-added products and making the farm economically
sustainable. The fall end the cycle
by teaching teens how to launch a food literacy campaign to teach others the
information they have learned during the program and to get folks thinking about
food, their bodies, and their footprint in their community.
Year-end
Demographics 2007
- Total
Number of Youth Participating: 43
- Total
Number of Girls: 20
- Total
Number of Boys: 23
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- Number of
participants per session:
- Spring
Program: 17 (12 returning from fall 2006 program)
- Summer
Program: 12 (7
returning from fall 2006 / 2 returning from spring 2007)
- Fall Program: 33 (6
returning from fall 2006 / 2 returning from spring 2007)
The
Spring Program
The
spring program in 2007 had 17 participants, all African-American, ranging in age
from 14 to 19-years. The Youth
Corps consisted of nine girls and eight boys, four residing in Cabrini-Green and
thirteen from Chicago’s West side.
The
youth started the program at Growing Power’s Chicago office working on artwork
for a button (during the fall program of 2006, teens created two slogans:
“Turnip the Volume on Veggies” and “Stay Tight – Eat Right.” A button with the slogan “Turnip the Volume on Veggies” was created
during the spring). Youth also
created a Haitian-inspired, decoupage mural displaying trees with healthy food
choices and junk foods. During the
chilly, spring months, youth worked at Garfield Park Conservatory in the
greenhouse to grow lettuce and crops for transplanting in the late spring.
Once
the spring weather turned warmer, youth worked in the gardens at the Chicago
Avenue Community Garden and the garden at the office, building beds and
designing their own community farm. Youth
worked on selecting value-added crops and designed a simple business plan for
their enterprise. The session ended
with youth presenting their work and a community meal with local food provided
by Growing Power.
The
Summer Program
The
focus of the summer is placed on value-added crops and products, with youth
ending each week selling crops they have harvested at a local farmers’ market. Another emphasis of the summer is good work habits. In order to accomplish both goals, weekly themes are linked. For example, one theme is, “Stop
bugging me: bugs in the garden and bugs in the workplace.” During this week, youth participate in collecting and identifying bugs in
the garden and participate in activities and workshops on dealing with conflict
at work.
During
the summer, youth work at the Grant Park Urban Potager where they have the
opportunity to harvest for the market, learn aspects of garden design, and the
economics of running an urban farm. Youth
learn how to create a farm from the ground up at the Jackson Park Urban Farm by
building beds and seeding or transplanting crops. At the Chicago Avenue Community Garden at Cabrini-Green,
youth learn how to build a compost pile and maintain vermicompost bins. The summer session is supplemented by tours of water features at
Millennium Park, the farm at the Lincoln Park zoo, Art in the Garden at Garfield
Park Conservatory, the Osaka Japanese garden at Jackson Park, a survey of
farmer’s at Chicago’s Green City Market, and a tour of Growing Power and
Will Allen’s rural farm in the Milwaukee area.
The
summer program consisted of 12 students, ranging in age from 14 to 17-years. The program consisted of eight boys and four girls. Of the 12 participants, only three were new Youth Corps. members. The youth represented eight schools in the Chicago land area. Four of the youth live in Cabrini-Green and the remaining eight students
live on Chicago’s West side.
The
Fall Program
The
fall program in 2007 consists of 33 African-American teens, 13 girls and 20 boys
ranging in age from 14 to 17 years of age. The participants represent 13 schools in greater Chicago. Eleven of the students come from the Cabrini-Green neighborhood, while
the other 21 students reside on the West side of Chicago. Youth in the fall
program work after school from 3:30 to 6:30pm three days a week.
During
their job training, youth learn in the gardens at Grant Park and Cabrini-Green
for the first four weeks of the program. In
the garden, youth learn how to harvest and bunch crops, post-harvest handling
and packing, compost building and maintenance, and winterizing a garden. Once the weather turns cool and the dusk settles earlier in the evening,
the students move into the office and begin the food literacy aspect of the
program. Youth learn about local
foods, food miles, and organic vs. conventional farming. Youth create slogans and artwork to inform others about the
above-mentioned issues. This fall
the slogans created by the Youth Corps. are “Let the Beets Beat On,”
“Compost…That’s Hot,” and “The Greatest Veggies of all Thyme.” The final product for this session will include a bumper sticker, a
button, and youth compiled information for the Growing Power Web site.
Youth
also participated in two community dinners with local produce and meats,
interviewed local farmers at the Lincoln Park Winter Market, and toured the
Peggy Nobart Nature Museum to specifically look at pollinators.
The Chicago
Avenue Garden at Cabrini-Green
The
garden at Cabrini-Green continues to flourish with the help of the gardeners,
neighborhood children, multiple volunteers, and Growing Power staff. The garden has seen many additions over the summer months – a new
“texture” garden, a youth pizza and salad garden, a large jump in the number
of gardeners sharing plots, a new youth curriculum, and many new neighborhood
children visiting and planting in the garden. Additionally, the garden added a production component to help Fourth
Presbyterian Church’s anti-hunger program. This includes adding fresh produce to weekly food bags going to residents
in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood and church suppers feeding low-income
residents throughout Chicago.
Growing
Power staff created a new “curriculum” at the garden for neighborhood
children. The new curriculum is an
activities-based curriculum that follows a weekly theme such as magical seeds,
wiggly worms, weather, and pollinators. Children
played vegetable Sudoku, learned math by racing bugs, and saw Black-Swallow
caterpillars forming cocoons. This
new curriculum reflects the drop-in nature of the Cabrini program and gives kids
fun, educational activities that accommodate the child’s inclination. It also gives the children opportunities to engage in a garden related
activity on days when it is raining or far too hot to work in the garden. During the season, well over 150 children attended an activity or event
at the garden. The average daily
attendance at the garden was 12 youth aged 5 to 11 years.
Additionally,
a pizza oven made of cob was built at the garden for community lunches. Youth harvested produce from the pizza garden and created their own pizza
for the Back to School Community Lunch at the end of August. This event ended the 10-week curriculum and allowed children who planted
the garden during the first week of the summer to see the fruits of their labor.
The
Chicago Avenue Garden continues to be a model for food security and urban
agriculture. The garden has hosted
multiple tours, such as Heifer Project International, farmers from Michigan and
London, and the Home and Garden Magazine Tour. This is important for the Cabrini-Green neighborhood as buildings in the
neighborhood are demolished and as turf-wars between gangs increase due to
diminishing “territory.” The
garden continues to offer a safe space for children to play and thrive in this
changing neighborhood.
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Milwaukee Headquarters: 5500 W. Silver Spring Drive, Milwaukee, WI 53218 Tel. 414.527.1546 l Fax 414.527.1908 Chicago Projects Office: 2215 W. North Avenue, Chicago, IL 60647 Tel. 773.486.6005 |
Our
youth learn all aspects of organic vegetable garden maintenance, from making
compost, vermi-composting, to weeding and watering, plant identification, pest
management without the use of chemicals and community owned and
operated food
systems. Using farming as a hands-on teaching tool, young people are challenged
both mentally and physically, gaining a broad range of experiences from
observation and decision-making to physical fitness and tool usage to aesthetic
and culinary appreciation. In addition, youth farm apprentices gain the
valuable and unique skill of learning how to produce something, creating a whole
host of entrepreneurial opportunities. 
Growing
Power’s Youth Corps. in Chicago is funded by the City of Chicago’s