Yes! This is exACTly what we are aiming for - to inspire and help others replicate our Youth-Driven Neighborhood Food Systems. This email just came in from our guests today from the Tzu Chi Community Clinic, Wilmington:
Thank you and your young girls for showing us your wonderful program this afternoon.This is a true great learning experience for us. Hopefully, we will be able to bring the model to the community we work very soon.
Our strong feeling is that this program will be a good replicate in our community and we think we are going to start with our monthly food giving program and encourage them to come and plant with us. If they come regularly and have a successful program, we will them also encourage the extended program like yours so they can go out to the community and grow in the neighborhood garden.
Please share with us about your training program and your grant proposal. I think if possible, we will write a grant and send kids from the community to receive training at your site and have them come back to help establish the program in Wilmington community.
I will invite some of volunteers to come to clinic and we will discuss on Friday and brain storm. as you said, we will pick from your brain and experience.
The graduates (aka Cultivars) are taking over!
Check it out. Just this spring, 8 students completed RootDown's first Horticultural & Entrepreneurial training, preparing them to design, install, and maintain food gardens as part of our Supply-side programming for building our Youth-driven Neighborhood Food Systems.
At graduation, they pitched a business project idea - to design and install 8 more residential gardens at our WECAN site. To date, they have completed three new gardens, are about to install another, and have presented designs for a fourth garden. They are unstoppable, and they are recording all this activity on a Facebook group page they created, called Food in the Hood. They've named themselves - the Cultivars.
And WATCH OUT - the second 13-week training kicks off in the coming weeks, over at our HQ site with Nuevo South! The focus of this training will be on distributing (and eventually selling) food from our gardens back throughout the neighborhood.
Our first Horticultural/Entrepreneurial team graduates!
Yesterday, youth from three South LA High Schools completed RootDown LA's 13-week training course that prepared them to design, install and maintain a network of neighborhood gardens at our WECAN Urban Farm site. Developed by our Programs Manager, Karen Ramirez, and our Advisory Board Member, architect and permaculturist, Corinna Gebert, the training covered topics including: the changed food system, the importance of soil and compost, site analysis, seasonal and companion planting, non-toxic fertilization and pest management, harvesting, distribution, marketing, and value-added garden products.
The youth not only successfully completed the program, they signed on to continue working with RootDown to design and install 8 more gardens in the neighborhood over the summer. Yesterday they presented their project plan for funding. They will be funded to also develop the system through which future trainees will expand and replicate the "supply-side" activities of our Youth-driven Neighborhood Food Systems.