The Intervale Center’s
Healthy City Youth Farm
Connecting Youth with Farms and Food
Healthy City is the Intervale Center’s youth education and food security program. With successful small organic farms as neighbors and an amazing community of staff and interns as role models, the Intervale is a perfect place to inspire both personal and community change.
The Intervale Center’s Healthy City program was founded in 2002 to provide job- and life-skills training for at-risk youth ages 13 to 16, to ensure better education about food—and better nutrition—in our schools, and to address the needs of low-income families for fresh produce. Healthy City meets these needs by creating a community of teens and adults dedicated to growing healthy food for themselves, their families, and others in the community. The program does this through three complimentary initiatives: the Healthy City Youth Farm, the Gleaning Project and the Burlington School Food Project. In addition, the Intervale Community Connections Project is a critical link between the Intervale and the local community.
● Check out Eva Sollberger's video about Healthy City here!
● View a copy of our latest newsletter here!
● 2008 volunteer opportunities!
● For more information about Healthy City, contact Jenn McGowan or at 660 0440, ext 104.
RECENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- 2007 Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award to honor work to fight hunger
- Sprit of the Community Award by area alternative high school C.P. Stepping Stones for “providing a place where students who have been marginalized can find their identity and do meaningful work.”
- Best in Show at Junior Iron Chef VT - Check out Eva Sollberger's video here.
GOALS
Healthy City’s goals are:
- To provide an alternative learning environment, skills training and paid summer work for area youth;
- To increase reliable access to locally produced fresh food, especially in schools and under-served populations in Burlington, Vermont;
- To foster connections between youth, the land and the community.
YOUTH FARM
For eight weeks each summer, 25 teens are paid a stipend to grow and market produce while attending workshops to prepare them for future employment. Youth Farm participants spend 20 hours per week at work on the 12-acre farm and attending classes, workshops, and field trips organized around weekly themes. Themes range from farm ecology and sustainable agriculture to business and marketing, community service, and nutrition and health. Field trips expose participating youth to the operations of other farms, local grocery stores, social service agencies, and other Intervale Center programs. Regular cooking classes round out the program.
Healthy City Youth Farm has proven to be highly successful at engaging, mentoring, educating and motivating youth at many different levels. As the growing season matures, so do the youth, having learned the fundamentals of holding a job, showing up for work on time, and being rewarded with wages. They develop a commitment to the program, their teachers, the Intervale community of farmers, and, most importantly, to each other. They also gain working knowledge of sustainable agriculture and its benefits to the local food system and their own health.
HEALTHY CITY GLEANING PROJECT
Healthy City teens and volunteers work side by side to harvest surplus produce from neighboring farms and distribute it to the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf and 14 other nonprofits for families in need. Managed by 19-year-old teen leader (and Healthy City Youth Farm graduate) Mike Delage, the Gleaning Project collected and distributed 30,000 pounds of produce in 2007, and aims to exceed 35,000 pounds in 2008.
BURLINGTON SCHOOL FOOD PROJECT
The Burlington School Food Project connects school kids and families with nearby farms by bringing fresh produce to cafeterias and hands-on agricultural education to students. Through this collaborative effort with Burlington Legacy Project, Burlington School District, City Market/Onion River Co-op, Food Works, NOFA-VT, Shelburne Farms, Sustainable Schools Project, University of Vermont and Vermont FEED, Healthy City is now the largest independent supplier of produce to Burlington School District cafeterias. Healthy City youth and staff, along with staff from partner organizations, also host educational field trips by more than 500 elementary and middle-school students annually.
OLD NORTH END COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS
The Intervale Community Connections project seeks to improve connections between Burlington’s Old North End (ONE) and the Intervale through increased coordination, education and civic engagement among ONE residents, neighborhood groups, social service organizations and the Intervale. In 2008, the Connections Project coordinated an information table at the Old North End Farmers Market, bringing together local organizations with a shared goal of increasing food access in the Old North End.
View the Fresh Food Access in the Old North End flier here.
For more information about the ONE Old North End project, contact contact Jenn McGowan at 660 0440, ext 104.