An NCR-SARE Youth Educator grant helped four youth educators develop the curriculum and programming to expand Edible Avalon’s summer youth programs:
- Summer Program for Youth (SPY) for K-8 students, and
- Youth Leadership Program (YLP) for High School students
The Edible Avalon-Summer Youth Program is a unique opportunity to immerse the next generation in sustainable, organic food growing. The goal of the program is to help students realize the importance of living soil and of using sustainable methods--working with nature, rather than against it. Educators designed the program to give students a glimpse into the burgeoning world of sustainable urban agriculture and the ways in which even disenfranchised communities have used community and urban gardening to empower themselves and build community.
Additional goals for students include:
- Gain self-confidence and self-respect by producing an important commodity for themselves and others
- Learn about the link between healthy soils, healthy plants, and healthy bodies
- Understand the scope of the environmental problems caused by conventional agriculture
- Understand the value of buying locally made food, and the costs of long-distance transport
- Gain respect for nature's complexity and the harm we cause by ignoring how nature works
- Increase their appreciation of the outdoors and gardening
- Be introduced to unfamiliar crops and learn how to grow and prepare (and love) them.
Want more information? See the related SARE grant:
- Edible Avalon Summer Youth Program (YENC10-036)
This material is based upon work that is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture through the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or SARE.