Focus Area: Youth Development

Grant Amount: $7,500

Based in Minneapolis, serves Lyndale and Powderhorn neighborhoods in Minneapolis, and Frogtown and the West Side in St. Paul. Begun in 1995 in south Minneapolis, Youth Farm is a seed-to-plate youth development organization serving hundreds of youth ages 9-24. It now includes school and community partnerships in St. Paul’s Frogtown and west side neighborhoods and north Minneapolis’ Hawthorne, Harrison, and Webber-Camden neighborhoods. Staff are residents of the neighborhoods they work in and/or their identities and lived experiences align with the youth they serve.

Grant supports younger participants, ages 9-13, who access Youth Farm primarily through school partnerships, as well as a few community-based sites. Youth Farm’s progressive developmental model offers the opportunity for the younger youth to focus on skill-building and relations, and it gradually adds leadership opportunities as the youth grow in the program. The youth focus on understanding food systems and building food skills like cooking, growing food, and STEM skills, as well as interpersonal skills such as teamwork, role-modeling, SEL, and cultural responsiveness.