Back to Short Takes Back to Home
Contacts and Resources
Story Extensions
Story Extensions
Profiles of Food Project participants
Youth poem:
Story Extensions
Curriculum sample: sustainable agriculture exercise
Youth-created informational fliers
The Soil Man
Photo gallery
Project Profile |
|||||
|
Common Ground Young People Harvest Food and Community 
LINCOLN, MA —
Fifteen miles west of Boston, surrounded by lush fields
of fresh vegetables and herbs, the 60 urban and suburban teens who make up the Food Project’s summer corps gather
with their families each August to celebrate their season’s work. They have set a record with this summer harvest,
which goes to Boston area food banks and homeless shelters: 73,000 pounds from 21 acres of conservation land in
Lincoln, Massachusetts plus 6,000 pounds from two previously hardscrabble acres in inner-city Dorchester.But the farmers, aged 14 to 19, say they, too, have had a growing season. “It is very special to see huge zucchini plants produce food for people in shelters—and remember the hot day two months ago when you planted one,” says Jess, a young crew leader. “Patience,” says 15-year-old Shatara, asked what she gained from the experience. She adds, “Take your anger out on the weeds.” “The power of connections—connecting black and white, rich and poor, young and adult, ideas with needs,” another young farmer answers. A third says he has learned “the important role agriculture can play in the city.”
Nothing about the Food Project is contrived, especially in the opportunities it provides its young growers and the impact it seeks. “The stakes for us and our young people are high,” explains Program Director Greg Gale. “If we do not farm well and productively, people go hungry, land lies wasted, and families do not have access to the life-giving produce we grow.”
Crossing Boundaries of Age and Geography
Charismatic and persistent, Cheney attracted $140,000 in funding the first year, along with office space and
land from the Massachusetts Audubon Society. He hired two interns—Pat Gray, a veteran of local politics,
and Greg Gale, then a Harvard Divinity School student who had worked with teens—to put his ideas into action.
At the same time Gray and Gale were rounding up the means to sow and reap, the notion of local food production in
metropolitan areas began appearing in tiny pockets across the country. The vision was compelling. City-dwellers
grew their own food on once abandoned lots. People of all ages together worked the land, gaining new skills,
possibly a livelihood. Food production, however small, succeeded without the pesticides upon which big
agribusiness depended.
It now boasts a staff of 16, a summer crew of 60 teens (60 percent inner-city, 40 percent suburban), and close to
25 acres of conservation and inner-city land that yield over 150,000 pounds of organic produce annually—50
kinds of vegetables alone. Over half of the produce goes to 15 Boston food pantries and shelters. An additiona1
1,000 volunteers donate time in the fields and food lots. One-third of the teens that join in the summer continue
in a year-round program started in 1996.
Two low-cost, inner-city farmers markets, several small food businesses, a series of free community lunches
(prepared by local chefs), a Community Supported Agriculture program, and an EPA-sponsored environmental
awareness program have also taken root. Soon the Food Project will open a commercial kitchen in its Dorchester headquarters.
Along with Food, a New Sense of Community
Most tangible are the 75 tons of organic produce distributed to the city’s poor, the 2,500 hours volunteered at local soup
kitchens and homeless shelters, the compost and soil tests freely given.
The weekly farmers market provides concrete benefits, too. Produce, unavailable locally, is sold at bargain prices, and
outreach between the Food Project and various public agencies enables qualifying residents to use food vouchers.
The market also provides a venue for local gardeners to sell their surplus.
A further contribution is the large map of this Boston neighborhood, “Dudley Street” to locals, which
will soon hang in TFP’s new offices there. The outcome of a door-to-door survey by interns this summer,
the map pinpoints each of the 156 front- and backyard gardens tucked away in this densely populated community.
The blueprint helps TFP crews know, for example, who in their “family” of urban growers needs assistance
with heavy chores, who has produce to haul to the farmers’ market, who needs help remediating lead-poisoned
soil. TFP youth provide these extra pairs of hands.
Changed perceptions and relationships accompany these sturdy contributions. The Food Project “is building a
sense of what is possible on the land, tapping the agricultural pride in this immigrant neighborhood” explains
Jon Barros, director of the nearby Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative. What began as an informal security force
of neighbors determined to protect TFP’s 2.5 acres from vandalism (of which there has been little) has yielded
a new sense of community. Barros describes a “contagious spread” with community standards emerging
around “how you keep your land.”
And, as hoped, the Food Project’s young crews do reach across their urban-suburban divide, finding common
ground as they dig and weed. At this year’s end-of-summer celebration, several suburban kids spoke about
how their work in the city gardens and shelters had altered their views of poverty and race —now “changed
indelibly” in the words of one. Some urban kids talked of teamwork. As 14 year-old Brian said to his suburban
crewmate Trevor, “You’re white, I’m black, but working the fields together we’ve become
good friends. Man, I’m going to miss you.”
Supporting Teamwork and Responsibility
Just as new to these teens is the dirt, sweat, and fatigue that come with farming. While the program’s biggest lure
for some, for others it is a trial whose tribulations unfold slowly.
Working in teams—ten-person crews with two older teens serving as crew leaders—provides the spark and
the glue. “My crew kept me going,” is a common refrain. The crew provides the base through which TFP’s
young people learn about work, service, farming, diversity, and community. The documentation each summer’s crew
leaves behind helps new crews see how they stand on the shoulders of those who came before.
TFP’s young people commit themselves not only to daily physical work but also to intensive workshops and
discussions—always guided by older teen interns and staff (generally in their 20’s). At the start of each
summer, participants create personal and community goals, draft a plan for achieving them, and set targets for measuring
progress. In turn, participants engage in “Straight Talk,” a communications tool designed to encourage learning and personal growth.
With Kellogg Foundation funds, Greg Gale recently consolidated into a 238-page book, Growing Together, the
cornucopia of methods TFP has gathered and developed over the past ten years to stimulate interactive learning.
At the Food Project, each job is important, from cleaning tools to making change at the farmer’s market to
surveying community garden plots. “Every youth here has learned something and has had time to practice
it,” says the summer program coordinator, Rachel Fouche. “They take that with them wherever they go.”
The two directors also made a commitment to an open management style. The decisions and direction of TFP come
from regular discussions among staff, interns, and crew. Indeed, teens serve on TFP’s board of directors.
“This is not a passenger ship,” says Gray. “We are all rowing, so we all determine where the boat is going.”
Not Just Youth Work, Not Just Community Development
Like the agriculture upon which it is based, the
Food Project is an intricate system. It gives young people a structured work experience coupled with service learning.
It adds energy to a small but growing movement for sustainable urban agriculture.
Still, the Food Project wrestles with two concerns integral to its aims. One is gaining broad attention for issues
of food and agriculture, especially in urban areas—at a time when only two percent of Americans nationwide
remain involved in agricultural production.
The second involves the extent to which the Food Project extends beyond service to empowerment.
Adam Seidel, who began with TFP five years ago as a crew member and later joined the summer staff, asks
the tough question that dogs well-meaning “outsiders” who approach a community wishing to
be partners in change.
Adam suspects the answer lies in building partnerships that are truly reciprocal, perhaps the final target
of TFP’s diligence. This summer, Adam and others say they heard more residents than ever before
talk about “us” rather than “you.” They spoke of the work of the Food Project—
of harvesting crops and community—as “ours.” Email:
Click here for a list of resources available from The Food Project.
Profiles of Food Project participants |
Like the seeds these young people planted at summer’s start, the Food Project has blossomed from a
small pilot ten years ago to a nationally recognized program. Year-round, young people and adult partners
join the Food Project’s quest to create a sustainable metropolitan food system, to bridge communities
traditionally divided by race, class, and physical distance, and to address critical environmental and social issues.
“Impossible to resist” is how one person describes
a first encounter with Ward Cheney and his yet-to-be-born Food Project in 1991. An experienced farmer in Lincoln,
Cheney wanted to bring together people of diverse backgrounds—particularly youth—to grow and
distribute food to Boston’s hungry and, in the process, “practice care for land and community.” 
These images, combined with The Food Project’s ideas about bridging age and community, formed a heady
mix. Seizing ideas and opportunities at every turn—generated by its young staff as much as Gale and Greg—
the Food Project took off and has grown steadily ever since.
Working on so many levels at once, the Food Project’s impact is broad and deep.
The map also affirms the rich agricultural traditions of this largely African-American and Cape Verdean community,
for whom organic farming had once been a way of life. Amanda Cather, TFP’s “urban grower,” likens
her work and that of her young charges to urban agricultural extension agents (a role that currently does not exist). Local
gardeners often stop by TFP’s two city lots to ask questions and exchange tips. “Folks here long to share
their food and their knowledge,” Amanda says, then adds, “On some days, it seems like we’re growing
a rich community laboratory of give and take among the collard greens.”
Youth begin their experience in TFP’s seven-week
summer program by signing a standards sheet signifying they are joining a community that operates under common assumptions.
For many, this is their first job and paycheck ($150 a week), and the standards sheet spells out violations and consequences.
Offenses range from tardiness or not wearing the Food Project t-shirt (a daily requirement) to lying or vandalism, which bring
automatic dismissal. Participants quickly catch the spirit of the program, and major violations are rare. 
Clearly, TFP draws upon the desire of its adolescent participants to do meaningful work. “It simply feels so
good to be helping people, so good,” says 15-year-old Vera. Their work carries, too, the visible reminders
of a job done well (the perfect ear of corn) or neglected (peas choked by weeds). As crews deliver to city food pantries
crates of fresh produce they have planted, harvested, washed, and weighed, they hold in their hands the best of all motivators.
Early on, Gray and Gale devised opportunities for TFP’s young people to grow within the program. They are
able to return each year to tackle new challenges and roles, some moving from crew worker to crew leader to intern to staff. 
It speaks out on issues of environmental
safety, pesticide and lead contamination, and not least, hunger. It informs the “food security” plans of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency. That it promotes powerful youth
development comes as a bonus to many. Those who fund TFP because of the significant work it accomplishes are
sometimes surprised to learn that youth are at the center of its achievements. 
Of course, the Food Project is also about bridging community and race. This was its starting place:
youths and adults of diverse backgrounds working side by side, moving from suburb to city and back—a
commitment that placed TFP among 100 “promising practices” recognized by former President Clinton’s Initiative on Race. 
“How can individuals with seemingly more resources actively give their power
or knowledge to others who seemingly have less, without reinforcing the systems that allow for inequality to
exist?” he wonders. In the case of the Food Project, “How do you approach neighbors in their
gardens in ways that suggest equality? How do you shift the balance from preaching to bringing out and validating
the wisdom in each gardener’s experience?”