Re: Gardening and Microenterprise

**A*@aol.com**

Connie, 

Boy are you ambitious - with FFA's ( Future Farmers of America) closing down 
left and right ,you want to teach kids to be gardeners and businesspeople at 
the same time. 

You want to teach these poor innocent kids how they can have their hearts 
broken as farmers, eh?  Put these innocents out there marketing their produce 
while the larger agribusiness concerns are putting family farms out of business 
everyday?  A rough business, for sure. 

 Honestly, in many of our lower income neighborhoods, there are kids who have 
worked alongside their parents as migrant workers when the folks from child 
welfare or the State Labor Dept. weren't looking.  I know more than a few here 
in NYC.  Most still have their fingers. 

Now some community gardens do sell their produce at farmer's markets or 
contribute them to soup kitchens.  One Bronx outfit that has teenage participants 
sells hydroponic greens raised on roof tops at the Council for the 
Environment's Green Markets in NYC during the winter.  

Here is a link to the Greenmarket program so you can hunt them down: <A 
HREF="http://www.cenyc.org/HTMLGM/maingm.htm";>CENYC Greenmarket</A>

But my choice, as a parent and gardener with some attachment, however tenuous 
to reality, would be to teach the kids how to garden and how to enjoy 
it...savor the flavor of what they grow
<< Subj:     [cg] Gardening and Microenterprise
 Date:  8/6/03 3:05:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time
 From:  Gardenfoolery@aol.com
 Sender:    community_garden-admin@mallorn.com
 To:    community_garden@mallorn.com

 Thank you one and all for information regarding my question posed to kids 
and 
 gardening and schools.

 I'd like to take this a little further.  Does anyone have, or know of, 
 programs that use teens in community gardening efforts with a 
microenterprise bent?  
 What I'm hunting for are the programs that have youth work the gardens and 
 then they either sell their produce or they work with a partner to sell the 
 produce or whatever, but will introduce these kids to the world of business; 
 specifically, how to start and run one.

 Thanks again,
 Connie Nelson
 2605 S Davis Rd
 Spokane, WA   99216-0259
 (509) 921-1481 (h)
 gardenfoolery@aol.com >>

______________________________________________________
The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org

To post an e-mail to the list:  community_garden@mallorn.com

To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:  https://secure.mallorn.com/mailman/listinfo/community_garden