For 30 years, The Food Project has partnered with youth from diverse backgrounds to foster personal development while simultaneously building a stronger, healthier, and more equitable food system. Food and farming are the medium through which youth learn:The Food Project operates in three overlapping areas: youth, food, and community. In a typical year, 120 teens participate in a positive youth development curriculum, combining paid work on the farms and in community programs with insightful and empowering workshops. These programs consist of three tiers: 

• How to lead change in their communities 
• The root causes of—and potential solutions to—food inequity and insecurity
• How to work together across their differences

Seed Crew – In their introductory summer, youth acquire critical workplace, communication, and social-emotional skills and build their foundational knowledge. 

Dirt Crew – Youth who graduate from Seed Crew are employed during the academic year, deepening their confidence as food systems leaders.

Root Crew – The most experienced cohort of youth are active year-round at the cutting edge of food system innovation in their home communities. 

In the broader community, The Food Project develops and applies innovative approaches to food distribution, providing hundreds of thousands of servings of fresh produce each year through hunger relief partnerships, affordable and SNAP-accessible farmers markets, and other innovative food access and community gardening programs. 

While the pandemic has had a significant impact on The Food Project’s programs, the organization adapted to maintain services to youth and the community. As food insecurity skyrocketed in Massachusetts, The Food Project maximized the impact of the organization’s farms, distributing over 350,000 servings of fresh produce to people in need through donations, sales at affordable and SNAP/HIP-accessible farmers markets, and more. In its youth programs, The Food Project made the difficult but necessary choice to suspend its in-person programs for the first time in its 30-year history. Teens already enrolled in Dirt and Root Crew were engaged in online learning through the Spring and Summer. In the fall of 2020, hybrid outdoor in-person and remote youth programs were instituted, including Sprout Crew, a new fast-track program combining the essential elements of Seed and Dirt Crews.

The Food Project’s youth programs use evaluation tools developed in consultation with consultants at SEED Impact to demonstrate growth of skills and knowledge across several impact areas. The 2019-20 results showed strong progress across five impact areas.

Assessments of youth in Dirt Crew showed: 

• 86% increase in Sustainable Agriculture competence
• 132% increase in Diversity/Anti-Oppression competence
• 211% increase in Communicating Powerfully competence
• 177% increase in Workplace Skills competence
• 186% increase in Social Change competence

For more information about The Food Project’s impact, please visit their Statistics and Press page.

COVID SAFETY

 The Food Project has decided on a combination of proof of vaccination for those staff members and youth participants that are vaccinated and a weekly negative COVID test for those who are not:

Seasonal and Year-round Staff/FAO Fellow: Vaccinated staff will need to send a digital copy or photo of their vaccine card to HR.

Unvaccinated staff will need to send a negative COVID test result (from the prior 72 hours) to HR by 5 pm on the night before they come to work for the week. This must be done each week.

If the test result is not received, unvaccinated staff cannot come to work and will not be paid until the test result is received.

Testing: TFP will not pay for COVID tests, but will try to provide information on where staff and youth can get a free test.

Positive Test Result: Anyone receiving a positive test result must notify their manager and HR, provide as much information as possible about close contacts, and quarantine for 10 days (per BPHC). To get paid time off to recover from COVID, they must provide proof of a positive COVID test to HR.  If they prefer not to provide that, they can take unpaid leave or use vacation, sick time, and/or personal days. Masks:
Unvaccinated staff and youth must wear a mask at all times, inside or outside.

Vaccinated staff and youth must wear a mask when inside or in a vehicle.

Serve and Grow/Build-a-Garden:  All staff and youth must wear a mask when leading/participating in Serve and Grow or Build-A-Garden regardless of vaccination status.  Volunteers will also wear masks.

NON-DISCRIMINATION STATEMENT

In order to provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all individuals,  employment decisions at TFP will be based on merit, qualifications, and abilities. TFP does not  discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, national  origin, age, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic  information, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.