This past month, our Advanced Leadership Internship has spent their time at Wheatsville’s community kitchen nurturing their culinary skills! These weeks of cooking culminated into our U R Chopped competition, where youth worked in teams to cook with mystery ingredients. Who would’ve thought that clamato, honey buns, canned tuna and broccoli could come together to make such a tasty meal? The youth really enjoyed this competition and despite having to work with some tough ingredients, felt really confident about the dishes they made and their cooking abilities. Now that our culinary workshop series is done, we’re back out in the field ready to lead volunteers, and work with the land.

Meanwhile, the 13 new members of our Food & Leadership Fellowship brought in spring with fresh and excited spirit, kicking off the program with insightful workshops, learning their way around the farm and farm tasks, with chipper and cheer for a great season ahead of us. Through the course of the program, fellows will help us grow thousands of pounds of food and pack it each week for our neighbors through our food access partners. They will explore the larger food system of Austin through workshops, guest speakers, and visits to other farms and food access partners. We can’t wait to see how they grow throughout the program!

The South Austin Interns have been deepening their knowledge of food equity in workshops and familiarizing themselves with different parts of Urban Roots. The youth attended our November Community Lunch and led visitors on a farm tour. They celebrated Thanksgiving with a Friendsgiving potluck and shared their food stories as they made fig leaf and lemongrass agua fresca.

With a strong foundation to build off of now, the SAI interns will start preparing for their block walking in Dove Springs soon, to get to know their community and invite residents to be a part of Urban Roots. Keep an eye out for them and say hello if you spot them on one of their Saturday walks!

Meanwhile, our Food and Leadership Fellows have been busy in their final month. They heard from our food access partner Keep Austin Fed to hear more about how we work together in our food access efforts, and have been doing cooking workshops with the veggies they’ve grown! The youth made farm fresh zucchini cakes with noche squash and chicken, yellow squash, and cucumber salads for a side. They also did a pickling class with our carrots, cucumbers, radish, and green beans. As the program comes to a close, they’ll continue their farm duties, and work on their own personal projects.

With fall rolling in, so are our youth programs, our Food and Leadership program and Advanced Leadership Internship! We’re excited to be welcoming back our alumni through our Advanced Leadership Internship, where youth can flex their leading, cooking, and community engagement skills, with the program lasting three semesters. Our Food and Leadership program has already been diving into the dirt and leading volunteers this past month. Throughout the program they will be practicing leading volunteers, discussing and deepening their understanding of food justice, learn to farm, and engage with their communities as well. With our South Austin Internship just kicking off as well, we can’t wait to see how our youth grow this year!

We’re seeking applications for our Fall 2022 cohort of our Food and Leadership Fellowship! The Fellowship is a hands-on, paid leadership development program on the farm for young folks between the ages of 17 to 23. Not only do Fellows learn to grow large quantities of sustainable produce, they learn professional development skills like leadership, task management, and mindful communication skills, and deepen their understanding of food justice and equity. The Fall 2022 session will run from September 20, 2022 through December 16, 2022 from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., Tuesday through Friday. The program will be in person, and Fellows will earn $13.50/hour for their hard work. The application deadline is Friday, September 9th. Apply today!

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We’re celebrating Watermelon Day this year with a bang, or more specifically, a tasty watermelon lager, made with Urban Roots watermelon! Hold Out Brewing made a refreshing lager beer that will be on tap August 3rd from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Hold Out Brewing, at 1208 W 4th St, Austin, TX, 78703. A portion of that evening’s menu supporting Urban Roots. Some Urban Roots folks will be there as well if you’d like to pull up a chair, grab some drinks, and chat!

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We’re proud of the youth of the Summer Farm Program and their growth, which wrapped up on July 16th. The final month of the program has been a busy one, with the youth working with Chef Rick Lopez of La Condesa, Chef Amada Turner of Olamaie , and Chef Fiore Tedesco of L’oca D’oro to feed and lead our Community Lunches. They also volunteered with Farmshare Austin and Community First!, where they participated in workshops about food equity. The youth did more community building until the program finished, and had to say goodbye. We wish a wonderful summer to our new summer alumni and hope to see their leadership and community building skills continue to flourish! Congratulations, Ana, Aaron, Nick, Melanie, Isaac, Oasis, Skylar, Jocelyn, Max, Ethan, Jannae, Abner, Ashley, Morgan, Leah, Mazzy, Yoselyn, Leo, Eric, Ivan, Ethline, Kenyce, Guadalupe, Saylor, Alejandra, Michelle, Dax, Quinn, Amberly!

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This recent summer season we were able to bring back one of our favorite summertime events, Community Lunches. These lunches brought us together for food and fellowship as we celebrated youth voices and leadership. They were also a special way for us to thank partners, friends, and volunteers. Urban Roots is very grateful to everyone who helps us do what we do; we truly couldn’t accomplish our mission without the youth, but also without the support of our community members, and dedicated Board members.

They’re an opportunity to learn about the experience of the youth; the youth work with local chefs and restaurants to create a delicious meal made from Urban Roots produce, discuss what Urban Roots means for them, and get to eat their delicious hard work.

For this summer season, we were very thankful to work with Chef Rick Lopez and La Condesa, Chef Amanda Turner and Olamaie (thank you to Sustainable Food Center for letting us use your kitchen!), and Chef Fiore Tedesco and L’oca D’oro who taught our youth to make their mouth watering and delectably delicious menu items! Cooking is culture, and we’re delighted that the youth enjoyed joining these different kitchens, learning different cooking skills, and learning new cuisine while sharing bits of each others’ culture. We can’t wait to see the youth learn and cook for the autumn Community Lunches too!

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We’re happy to announce that our Summer Farm Program started earlier this month, with 24 new youth and 6 Urban Roots alum planting their roots with us. The youth have hit the ground running between leading our volunteer days, working at our Farmers’ Market booth, and meeting our community and food access partners. They’ve also been helping run our Community Lunches, which we couldn’t do without them! Overall, the Summer Farm Program has really been getting their hands into the heart of Urban Roots. We can’t wait to see how they grow and what else they get up to this summer!

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The youth, the Food and Leadership fellows and the South Austin interns have had a warm final month of their programs. The fellows have been cooking it up in cooking workshops on the farm with farm produce they harvested; the fellows made ratatouille, tofu lettuce wraps, salads, and kale chips with pico (yum!) and even used wild dew berries from the South Austin farm to make dessert.  They were also hard at work hosting volunteers on the farm, harvesting, making shares and helping run our farm tours at Tour de Farm. We’ll miss you, Ana, Ava, Kanti, Amanda, Christina, Zane, Noel, Cat, Cameron, Mirella, and Ahnika!

Meanwhile, the South Austin Interns finished their program of 8 months of community engagement, capping off their internship by giving farm tours and cooking with residents that live near our South farm or are customers through our food distribution partnership with GAVA. Thanks to their work, Urban Roots continues to build meaningful connections with Austin residents. Congratulations to Audrey, Melanie, Nick, Quinn, Rodolfo, Milo, Eloy, Amberly, Priscilla, Quinn, Javier, Nashley, and Emilio on completing their South Austin Internship!

We’re extremely proud of the hard work the Urban Roots youth have done, and though we’ll miss them, we’re excited to see where they plant their roots next.

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