On the Farm:

To Promote Summer Learning, Gardening Bears Fruit

For high school students in Northwest Philadelphia, summer learning seeds are sown when they dig their hands into the dirt. For these student farmers, a summer job doubles as an educational experience on Foundations, Inc.'s Seeds for Learning farm site at Martin Luther King High School. They plant, care for, and harvest a cornucopia of organic fruits and vegetables, then sell them at local farmers' markets.

But the students' experience goes far beyond manual labor skills; the Seeds for Learning program engages them by assigning individual responsibilities and explaining the framework around the neighborhood's food system, so that these young people can see how their work is making a difference in their community. Throughout the summer, they use handheld video cameras to document their time on the farm and at the farmstand. Once a week, they work alongside local chefs to prepare fresh, tasty lunches using ingredients picked from the farm; they then share those meals with community members and offer tours of the site.

Literacy is also a highlight of the program. This tight-knit group of student farmers has read and reflected on memoirs of teen togetherness, food justice events that have made history, and culturally relevant recipes that call for the freshest of ingredients. They sharpen their math skills while selling pints of raspberries and bags of greens at the farmstand, and build camaraderie as they learn life skills such as teamwork and communication.