Youth Farm & Market Project

What We Do

Youth Farm & Market Project is about youth gardening, cooking, nutrition, and entrepreneurship. It’s about youth connecting to their food and the environment – YFMP youth currently farm 9 garden sites – over 2 acres of urban land in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

It’s about a new way of bringing quality healthy food to urban neighborhoods and exploring culinary traditions from around the world – cooking and distributing over 11,000 pounds of fresh, local produce. It’s about community involvement – engaging over 400 volunteers in over 4,000 hours of service to their community.

Finally, Youth Farm & Market Project is about quality year round youth programs and employment – YFMP works with almost 500 youth ages 9-13 (a 60% increase from the prior year), and employs 25 teens as both interns during the school year and youth staff during the summer program.

Urban Agriculture

YFMP operates urban gardens in three neighborhoods in the Twin Cities – Lyndale and Powderhorn in Minneapolis and the West Side of St. Paul. We engage youth in running gardens to teach about where their food comes from, how to grow it, and how they can start to impact their local food system. Youth Organizing - At YFMP, we see youth as untapped resources in our communities. Instead of trying to “fix” their deficits, we form strong, long term relationships with youth to utilize their assets for their neighborhoods.

Project LEAD provides paid internships and summer employment for 25 older youth (ages 14-18) to develop power and public leadership in their neighborhood, apply these skills through their work on producing and distributing local produce, as well as supervise, mentor and create strong relationships with younger youth in our school year and summer program.

Cultural Nutrition

As we become more and more aware of the dangers of childhood obesity , YFMP work with youth leaders to learn how to grow, cook, and distribute foods traditionally found in South and Central American, Asian, African, African American, European American and other cultures.

The goal of the Cultural Farming and Nutrition Program is to provide support for new immigrants’ traditional diets, and to increase both the capacity and cultural confidence necessary for immigrant youth to grow, eat, cook, and provide these foods to others in their communities. We engage parents and community members to bring the knowledge of recent immigrants and different cultural perspectives to our kitchens, lunches, and gardens.