Project Overview
Commodities
Practices
- Education and Training: youth education
Proposal abstract:
Our current youth educational program, The Young Urban Farmers is active in 5 schools in Lincoln, Nebraska and reaches 75 students a week. Our project is building a mobile library in which these children, and students outside of these participating schools, can check out books to learn about sustainable agriculture. The schools' library garden selection is slim and the public libraries' don't offer much either. Children would be able to check out our books or games every week at our local farmer's market stand and also at large, public events we attend annually such as Streets Alive! and Earth Day.
Our Youth Garden Staff will check out books at our school gardens during scheduled educational programming. Training farmers from our incubator farm work our market booth and will be onhand to answer any questions youth may have before or after reading the material. Using the Little Free Library® movement as inspiration, we will purchase an enclosure for these books and games that is easily transported.
The books proposed address organic gardening (including soil health, composting, planting and seed saving), raising chickens, sustainable agriculture employment and the personal and environmental benefits of organic agriculture.
Children will be able to check out one book or game at a time for a duration of one week. This way, if they check it out at the farmers market, they can return it at the following market. If checked out at a special event, the book will be returned to our office. During the winter months, the library will be available to the public at our office, located in south Lincoln as well as the five schools currently enrolled in our Young Urban Farmers Program.