Youth Garden Internships and Urban Herbals
San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)
San Francisco, CA

Gardening program that hires young people to work as gardeners, teachers and food preparers, and salespeople. Older youths teach classes and bottle and sell products made from the gardens, including infused vinegars, jams, etc.

How and why did this start?
The program began when gardeners at SLUG had leftover herbs from its harvest at the Alemany Youth Farm, a large garden adjacent to a Section 8 public housing development. The idea was to teach kids how to can and preserve fruits and vegetables, and potentially generate additional income for the program. Infused vinegars

Who:
The youths in the programs range from 11-14 (youth garden interns) to 18-24 (Urban Herbals). Many of them are from the neighborhood surrounding SLUG headquarters in Hunter’s Point, more than a few come from the public housing development adjacent to the farm.

What happens there and how does it work?
In the Youth Garden Internships, young teens are hired by SLUG and paid slightly over minimum wage. There are three sessions, spring, summer and fall. After working for one or more sessions, they are usually promoted to supervise and/or teach such classes as beekeeping, rose maintenance, native plants and shrubs, and low-flow watering systems.

How has your community/the kids changed?
“Nearly everyone in this community (Hunter’s Point) has worked with us, or knows someone who has,” says Kristi Spierling, Urban Herbals Manager, who has been working and/or volunteering at SLUG for three years. For many, this is their first job, and first experience with work and responsibility. Especially among the kids who sell the Urban Herbals products, putting together presentations and speaking in public is an extremely important learned skill. Urban Herbals staff travel around the city to farmers markets, enterprise and job fairs, etc. selling their jams, jellies and infused vinegars. “They learn how to look strangers in the eye and speak authoritatively,” said Spierling, who notes that the less she is involved the better the products sell. “People would much rather talk to and buy from the kids than from me,” she continued, “and the kids take pride in that.”

What kinds of problems or complications were encountered, either in the past or ongoing? Have they come up with ways to address them?

Biggest problems have to do w/ bureaucracy. Immigration status, documents from parents, etc. Appropriate documentation to satisfy grantors, state, etc. is difficult. Also transportation for those who do not live in community. Some kids have cars, licenses, others don’t or had them revoked.

Another problem is retaining interest. Since this is the only job some of these youths think they can get, they don’t tend to value it highly, they don’t push themselves. To combat this, Kristi will pay some of the youths part time to go back to school to get their GED or to work at a nonprofit that does something else their interested in. The key is that they are working.

How to Measure Success:
Each year several youths from Urban Herbals go on to college, and almost all the interns in the program move to full time employment. Rarely do the kids just leave the program and not move to something else productive.

Link: http://www.slug-sf.org