Growing Gardens of Boulder County, Colorado

¡Cultiva! Youth Project News

¡Cultiva! Youth in the Greenhouse
¡Cultiva! Youth get a jump on the 2006 growing season
by starting seeds in the greenhouse.

We had a great 2007 summer season. Our summer ended very quickly this year, as the schools went back after only 9 weeks of summer vacation to re-adjust their schedule. We managed to fit quite a bit into this brief summer and here are some highlights of our 2007 season of the Cultiva! Youth Project.

Youth Leaders
Eleven Youth Leaders worked year round with Cultiva to plan and implement the program. In the spring they interviewed and hired 42 additional teens to work for the summer.

We have hired six new Youth Leaders for 2008 they are:
Chris Briardy
Paul McCudden
Lucas Pelle
Rachel Smith
Sam Streeter
Kyle Wilschusen

And we have six returning Youth Leaders who have been working hard with ¡Cultiva! for many years
Maria Cabeza (4 years)
Sebastian Cabeza (3 years)
Sonya Hueftle (3 Years)
Carolina Lasater (5 years)
Bernabe Soto (5 years)
Elena Zamora (2 years)

Farmer’s Market
We continued to improve our earned-income sources of revenue for ¡Cultiva! We wanted to really increase our spring Farmer’s Market sales by having plant starts for sale, and the Youth Leaders researched and picked vegetable varieties to appeal to market shoppers. We had our highest grossing Farmer’s Market weekly sales ever—one market grossed over $800, shattering our previous record of just under $500! We also carefully studied our Farmer’s Market sales records from 2006 when planning our field plantings. The youth planted more of the vegetables that were in demand, and decreased rows of veggies that were consistently left over at the end of Markets. We’ve been tailoring our vegetable varieties to the preferences of customers and have seen increased sales as a result. With all this hard work we managed to increase our Farmer’s Market revenue by almost 30%.

Leadership Skills:
The Youth Leaders did an amazing job this summer leading garden projects and managing groups of their peers. Each of the ¡Cultiva! summer participants was responsible for leading at least one game, activity or lesson for the younger children. It is always an amazing transformation to witness as the teens step into a new role and mentor the younger children. Through these activities the youth learn public speaking, effective communication and group management skills and perhaps most importantly, feel empowered as they are looked up to as role models and teachers.

Giving Back to the Community:

As they learn about how to grow food and become more connected to their food sources the youth find it a natural extension to address food and hunger issues in the community. They partner with local agencies, such as Community Food Share (CFS) and the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless for service learning projects and to donate food they have grown. In 2007, the ¡Cultiva! youth completed 452 hours of community service during 3 different projects, including a 2 day re-vegetation project in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

We really take pride in the fact that the food we grow in the garden is donated weekly to Community Food Share. Last summer we donated over 1200 pounds of fresh organic produce including zucchini, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, tomatoes to CFS.

¡Cultiva! also provides opportunities for various youth groups and individuals to be involved in service learning projects to increase the spirit of volunteerism in our community’s young people. This summer we had 165 youth volunteer with the ¡Cultiva! Youth Project to complete 647 hours of service learning projects growing and donating food to those in need in 2007.

Nutrition Education and Physical Fitness

The Youth Leaders developed and taught three different nutrition workshops in 2007. These seminars included nutritional education, how to identify and avoid junk foods, and tastings of food fresh from the garden. We practiced yoga almost every morning in the garden to get our bodies warmed up. And we continued our partnership with Slow Food. Eight cooking classes were attended by Cultiva! youth (approximately 15-18 youth at each class). A different local chef taught each class, which focused on preparing simple nutritious meals featuring vegetables grown in the garden. The chefs taught the youth to pay attention to the sources of their food and how it is processed and highlighted the importance of supporting local sustainable agriculture with their food choices. The youth brought seasonal vegetables to each class and learned how to prepare what they had grown. The food was delicious and we all enjoyed eating and cooking together.

Beekeeping
	¡Cultiva!'s Beekeeping is thriving. This is now our fourth year and we have 12 beehives. The Youth Leaders teach Cultiva participants about beehives and bee ecology in seminars then take the teens for hands-on workshops to tend the hives. In the fall we harvest honey and bees wax. We package the honeycomb and honey to sell at the Farmer's Market and at holiday craft fairs.

Summer 2007 youth evaluations results:

94% felt ¡Cultiva! showed them ways they could help in the community
82% thought they were a good role model for younger children
82% felt proud that they were able to help others in the community through ¡Cultiva!
79% thought that they were a better leader after working at ¡Cultiva!
79% said they believed they could make a difference in their own future because of what they learned at ¡Cultiva!
76% said they would eat healthier foods in the future because of what they learned at ¡Cultiva¡

Thanks, Thanks, Thanks!
We are so grateful for the support of the community for our program. Our accomplishments would not be possible without the presence of such a generous, dedicated community of volunteers and donors.