June 2024 Newsletter
Sent on June 5, 2024. Subscribe to our newsletter to get monthly updates and be the first to hear about our upcoming events and programming.
This month, we’re excited to share how interwoven our programs are – both with each other and also within the local food community, including other partner nonprofits and local businesses.
Many local organizations, ours included, are working hard to create more paid opportunities for teens. Giving Garden and Project YouthBuild, an alternative high school program, are partnering to offer a leadership apprenticeship program. Weekly field trips give students hands-on farming experience that equips them with the skills and confidence to become local food system leaders and inspire community efforts toward regional food sovereignty.
As a part of this apprenticeship, students worked regularly in Working Food’s seed gardens at GROW HUB throughout the fall and winter months. They learned the importance of providing local seed to our community and had an opportunity to work with seeds directly through harvesting, cleaning, and eating them!
Students worked with four unique varieties of African Peas (AKA cowpeas, Southern peas, field peas, Black-eyed peas) that were grown by Nicoya and Siembra Farms, who are participating in a Working Food project, “Local Food Needs Local Seed.” Students helped shell the dried peas, cleaning them up enough to be ready to eat and prepared for seed packets.
Chef Carl of Underground Kitchen made a special appearance for a pop-up cooking session, where students learned to make a delicious African Pea succotash using all four pea varieties. We ate lunch together, discussing the challenges and opportunities of operating a local food business. Chef Carl’s favorite pea was the heritage Florida Conch Pea, for its color contrast with the bright, colorful vegetables from his farm and Giving Garden, and its quick cooking time – nearly half compared to the others. This pea was then featured in our Young Chefs Pop-Up Restaurant in April.
Two Project YouthBuild students had the opportunity to participate in both the Giving Garden Apprenticeship and Working Food’s Young Chefs Culinary Management Course, truly a full-circle experience of local food! Our course was a 12-class unit, taught by our very own Chef Robert with assistance from the Youth Programs team. Students experienced 15 hours of exam preparation and studying and 12 hours of in-kitchen training. The course was designed to not only teach students cooking skills, but also prepare them to take the ServSafe Food Handlers and Managers Exams. The nine youth who completed the course gained experience that will make them skilled home chefs or certified food professionals, if they seek employment in that field.
Mya was a student in both the Giving Garden Apprenticeship and our Culinary Management course. Upon completion, she was hired by one of our newest kitchen clients: Groovy Grove Burgers, owned by Monica Albert. Albert hired Mya part time to help with her business, creating homemade and wholesome veggie burgers. These burgers are sold at the Monday Grove Street Farmers Market, which Monica also founded and organizes.
Walking around the Grove Street Farmers Market is a mini tour of Working Food. Many of the food businesses there depend on our kitchen program, as we help them navigate the rules and regulations necessary for running a successful food-based business in Florida. Some of the farmers at this market grow our local seeds and help save them, too. Additionally, some farmers are reliable suppliers of veggies and herbs that supplement our youth program when we’re doing fun things like making pickles and cooking meals together.
It fills our cup to see so many individuals and organizations working in ways that allow our community to flourish together. It’s connections like these that make our local food community more resilient. Access to healthy food, meaningful employment, and skilled labor reinforces our ability to create a thriving local ecosystem.
