July Partner for Change: Youth Farm Project
A Note from GreenStar: Youth Farm Project is one of 10 local nonprofit organizations voted among GreenStar’s membership to be a 2022 Partner for Change. Youth Farm Project is the July 2022 featured Positive Change recipient. Read more about our Partners for Change program here.
The Youth Farm Project: Farm-Based Social Justice Education for a Joyful Future
The Youth Farm Project is a farm-based social justice education organization. The work is with people and land, and that means things are always changing. The farm is located in Danby, on land stolen from the Gayogono:no people (colonized name ‘Cayuga’), and now owned by the Ithaca Waldorf School, who provide a no-cost lease. YFP grows about 3 acres of annual vegetables and perennial herbs, cultivates mushrooms, raises chickens, bees and this Spring, goats. We are a community farm, and hold that nourishing the soil is symbolic with nourishing the humans who interact with it.
The Youth Farm Project is excited to welcome our 13th Teen Summer Program cohort. 20 teens will spend their summer on the farm, learning important and transferable job skills, hands-on agriculture skills, and share space to explore social justice topics with each other, YFP staff and community experts.
Together they will weed row crops, harvest product and trellis tomatoes and they will also dive into conversations about body sovereignty, the cultural appropriation of food and plants, the industrialization of agriculture, and the history of the land we work on.
They will learn to make traditional Korean kimchi, inoculate mushroom logs, the basics of beekeeping and so much more. The food they grow will go home with families in Farm Share boxes and to the No Mas Lagrimas free food distribution, and also through our pay-what-you-will BIPOC Community U Pick.
YFP Fall and Spring programs include the Social Justice Immersion after school program for BIPOC teens, elementary school field trips, and art immersion programs – check out the recently completed mural on the Friendship Donations Network Just Because Center wall!
As with all non-profits, YFP’s existence is dependent on the community for funding, from individuals and grant foundations. Because of this, they appreciate any support people are able to give.
Please see Youth Farm Project’s website and social media for ways to volunteers and support their work.
www.youthfarmproject.org | @youthfarmproject