Youth Employment

Growing Hope seeks out a variety of opportunities to bring young people into our organization, and give them the opportunity to become active players in improving their communities through neighborhood outreach, peer to peer education, garden enhancement projects, and more. We seek to incorporate job preparedness training in all of our youth programming so that youth can continue to thrive after their time with us.

In recent years, we’ve employed youth through Michigan Works’ Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) to help with our raised bed install program, and to assist with development and upkeep at many of our neighborhood gardens. Along with becoming active members of the Ypsilanti community, these youth also connected with other adult and youth leaders in the urban agricultural movement in Detroit and Toledo.

Our Roots and Shoots summer intern program has employed youth as peer to peer mentors for garden-based entrepreneurial projects as well as programmatic assistants in our summer garden programs. We also had the opportunity to employ youth garden mentors to help coordinate our summer garden program at West Willow.