This year at Grow Dat Youth Farm, we will hire 20 teenagers to grow 10,000 pounds of food. To make this a reality, we are excited to announce our first annual campaign to "Grow the Green". Help us
employ teenagers to grow food for their community!
The Grow Dat Youth Farm came to life last year with the mission to nurture a diverse group of young leaders through the meaningful work of growing food. The idea
for Grow Dat is simple: hire young adults, whose job options are often limited to fast food restaurants, to grow food for their community. In New Orleans we suffer from diet-related disease in numbers even higher than the staggering national averages. We
believe in the ability of young adults not only to change those patterns in their own lives but to be leaders who can affect change throughout their community. At Grow Dat, we give young people the skills to do just that.
Each youth employee earns $1550 over the course of their 20-week job training program. They learn how to grow, process, sell and prepare fresh food by working on the farm, at farmers' markets and
at hunger relief agencies. Youth employees also receive training in communication, public speaking, cooking and nutrition, financial health and food justice.
We have raised two-thirds of the money necessary to hire 20 teenagers in January. We are launching this campaign to raise the remaining $9,300 we need. During the
holiday season we are hoping you will help us by giving the gift of employment. Everyone who donates will receive a downloadable PDF “Thanks For Giving” card which you can share with friends and family on whose behalf you have purchased this gift.
