A $56,900 grant will allow youth aged 15 to18 to learn agricultural and entrepreneurship skills through the new Youth Agricultural Mentors (YAM) summer program, run by the Sudbury Shared Harvest.
The grant was approved by the Ontario Trillium Foundation in 2019, but providing the funding was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As restrictions relax, YAM will welcome five high school students to the garden at École secondaire Hanmer, where the program will be held.
The participating students are summer placement students through the YMCA’s Youth Job Connect Summer program.
“We’re so excited to finally get this off the ground,” said Kryslyn Mohan, the youth programs co-lead with the YMCA, in a press release. “In a normal year, we would have involved many more students from the high school in preparing the site and planting. We couldn’t do that this year for obvious reasons, but we’re so happy to have the youth working with us now.”
Throughout the spring, the students participated in online gardening education sessions, and while the training is valuable, it’s not the same as getting your hands in the dirt, Mohan said.
In the garden, the youth will learn how to care for plants and when and how to harvest their produce. Local farmers will share their expertise with the students, as well. They will also have the opportunity to set up a market stall in front of the French high school in Hanmer to sell the produce they harvested, with any surplus donated to community organizations that serve people in need.
Sudbury Shared Harvest said in a news release that since securing the grant, other partners have come on board with support, including Nature’s Path, Canada Post Community Foundation, Trillium Mutual Assurance Company and Whole Kids Foundation.
The City of Greater Sudbury is also providing annual operating funds to the tune of $30,000 to make the program permanent, and give it leverage to secure future funding support, said Carrie Regenstreif, the executive director of Sudbury Shared Harvest.
She added that collaborating with Cambrian College’s R&D, which helped them access an additional three-year grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.
