Youth Farm and Market Project, a Twin Cities community treasure since 1995, has lofty goals. These include:
- Building young leaders
- Promoting healthy lifestyles
- Creating neighborhood connectedness and opportunities for contribution
- Developing and nurturing healthy relationships
The program focuses on kids ages 9 - 18, and uses a hands on approach to urban agriculture and gardening to teach life lessons. Started in 1995, the Youth Farm program now teaches more than 500 Twin Cities youth every single year.
Here's a little bit of the organization's history, directly from their website:
Over the years, we have evolved from an upstart community gardening program into a youth development organization which works for local food access, environmental stewardship, youth empowerment, and advancement of cultural expression. Building on a variety of traditions in working the land and growing and preparing food, our Youth Farmers build cross-cultural and intergenerational relationships, cultivate youth leadership, engage in micro-enterprise development, and organize neighbors to envision, realize and activate neighborhood public space. It is an organic process of nurturing individuals’ roots and sprouting new relationships.
Youth Farmers don't just grow terrific organic produce. They also sell it in markets in low-income areas and food desserts, making good food available and affordable for the people who most need it. Further, they work with ethnic restaurants and groceries in the neighborhoods they serve (Powderhorn, Lyndale, and West Side) to encourage merchants to stock quality (local, sustainable, organic) ingredients, and to allow them to purchase these ingredients affordably.
Youth Farm and Market Project is hosting a brunch at Lucia's and a market to raise money for the program on Saturday, October 3, from 11:00 am - 12:30. You can find more information about it in our Twin Cities local food events calendar.
Youth Farm is located at 128 West 33rd Street, Suite 2, Minneapolis, MN 55408. You can reach tmem at 612.872.4226
Lucia's is located at 1432 West 31st Street, Minneapolis, MN.
