Two urban gardening projects in Indianapolis are growing much more than fruits and vegetables.
In addition to bringing fresh produce to neighborhoods where it is often scarce, the small nonprofits are training local youth to not just grow a garden, but a better community.
Soul Food Project Indy and Felege Hiywot Center both train inner-city youth by providing a hands-on urban farming experience. The two organizations also helps them develop skills to become active community members.
Soul Food Project Indy, run by Danielle Guerin, has three locations in the Martindale-Brightwood area and has recently expanded its ability to grow during the winter months by building a hoop house on its property on Sheldon Street.
Soul Food offers its produce at farm markets as well as online at Market Wagon. Guerin has also been expanding her adult workforce, bringing on three new apprentices to help run things.
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Felege Hiywot, run by Aster Bekele, has been offering local youth the opportunity to learn agriculture using the scientific method for 18 years now. It began as short, 20-minute science conversations in classrooms and eventually blossomed into a multisite working garden complete with an orchard and community plots.
Bekele said once she started learning from the students what they wanted to learn and gain from the experience, the energy for the program ramped up. Felege Hiywot not only teaches its kids about gardening, but former students come back to the program to teach the kids about various scientific topics like medicine or botany.
What to know about Soul Food Project Indy
What is your organization’s mission?
Danielle Guerin: “Our mission is to foster wellness in community by increasing access to local food in urban farms and increasing hands-on educational opportunities.”
How many people do you serve?
D.G. “We served 36 households this year with our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program. People come in with support and they pay money up front in the early spring to help take on risk of farming and each week they get a share of our harvest. That lasts 20 weeks. That’s not counting our unique customers at the farm stand and farmers markets.”
What is your organization’s No. 1 need?
D.G. “Capital. We keep expanding and need more money. We’re trying to build a permanent farm stand at our site to have open all hours of the day.”
How can people get involved?
D.G. “We host volunteer opportunities at our farm. We post on our Instagram and Facebook and there’s a link on our website with a sign-up sheet. We post it up so they can sign up on the calendar so volunteers know what hours they can work and what they’ll be doing.”
You can find Soul Food Project online at www.soulfoodprojectindy.org or on Facebook and Instagram under the name soulfoodprojectindy.
What to know about Felege Hiywot Center
What is your organization’s mission?
Aster Bekele: “We are faith-based and we say, ‘Do unto others.’ Everybody has a gift and the main thing is to create this employment-based program to teach them to discover themselves and give that knowledge back. They have to give it back; giving it back is the fuel they need to go forward, it gives them big energy.”
How many people do you serve?
A.B. “In this many years, we have served over 3,000 students. We’ve served so many students I would go to grocery stores and all kind of places and people would say, ‘There’s the garden lady.’”
What is your organization’s No. 1 need?
A.B “Our number one need now is, yes always, funding, but it is also consistent skilled volunteers, especially trying to scale up after COVID. We’re trying to build that up. Volunteers have really gone down since COVID.”
How can people get involved?
A.B. “Call us or you can always go to our website. You can find us there and send us a note. We are working on a volunteer database for people to sign up so we can…
Read More: Soul Food Project Indy, Felege Hiywot teach youth to be leaders