Phoenix Community Garden Youth Program in Partnership with Richard Beavers Gallery

Phoenix Community Garden is pleased to offer a paid youth gardening internship this summer in partnership with Richard Beavers Gallery. In the last few years, education and extracurricular activities have been heavily disrupted. Phoenix is a sanctuary space full of community members with skills to offer. This is an opportunity to support a summer youth environmental internship program at Phoenix Community Garden, with the goal of developing leadership and wider community awareness and action on issues of nutrition, climate change, and environmental justice. The program is generously sponsored by an initial pledge of $10K from Richard Beavers Gallery.

The program will service eight to ten boys ages 12 - 17 years old in partnership with the BRO Experience. The youth will work as a collective as well as in strategic groups based on tiered mentorship. The program will be led by garden members as well as a DOE-certified teacher.

Participants will learn firsthand from community gardeners how to maintain and grow a healthy garden. Youth will also work on a project in the garden that will involve gaining skills such as carpentry, composting, environmental stewardship, community organizing, and event management. Young people will engage in hands-on learning around environment, health, community development, leadership and social justice.

1. Encourage academic learning through hands-on activities.
2. Develop practical, vocational and life skills.
3. Provide opportunities to serve and interact in our community.
4. Cultivate a safe and nurturing place for youth to interact.
5. Promote ecological awareness and responsibility.
6. Practice public speaking and leadership skills in culminating events

Structure

Youth are paid every other Friday. If a youth misses an internship session, they can make up hours by volunteering at the farm stand from 10 AM - 3 PM.  The program will conclude with a public presentation by the youth and an awards ceremony.

1. Hire and onboard lead teacher and mentor

2. Create, purchase and distribute materials to youth including t-shirts and gardening tools

3. Lead teacher and garden members work together to develop 6-8 week curriculum 

4. Coordinate and hire guest facilitators for Friday workshops and field trips

Growing up in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Ocean Hill/Brownsville has many challenges. According to the NYC Community Health Profile, 28% of residents live in poverty, compared with 20% of NYC residents overall. At the same time, the neighborhood is gentrifying, causing rent pressure that effectively cuts the food budgets of neighborhood families. According to a report from the Robin Hood Foundation, the rate of food hardship in Ocean Hill/Brownsville hovers around 60%.

.Phoenix Community Garden is within the bounds of Community Board 16. Taken from the board's website: "According to the 2010-2012 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates, Ocean Hill-Brownsville is home to 122,114 people of whom 80% are Black, 18% of Hispanic origin, and 2% of other descent. The median household income is $30,504 and approximately 40% of the population receives income support.”

Along with poverty, the neighborhood is chronically experiencing an epidemic of diet-related disease, including diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. According to the CDC, obesity may triple the rate of hospitalization from Covid-19. Awareness of the benefits of fresh fruit and vegetables, combined with efforts to increase access to them, is a crucial step to creating a healthier neighborhood.

Finally, climate change promises to be a greater and greater issue in the neighborhood. According to the Thomas Reuters Foundation, “Research has shown that some of the areas producing a greater UHI [Urban Heat Island]  effect in New York include the South Bronx, Hollis, Queens and Brownsville, Brooklyn. […] One of the main reasons for the greater heating in cities is buildings. They absorb much more heat than trees, grass and farmland, which better reflect the sun.” Clearly, community horticulture and the more widespread cultivation of urban gardens, street trees, and green roofs can be a crucial mitigator of some of the worse effects of climate change.