Our Grow Dat community extends our hearts to New Orleans in the wake of the tragic act of gun violence on Sunday.

Grow Dat Co-Director Leo Gorman is the Treasurer of the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club, the host of Sunday’s Mother’s Day second line parade. Multiple members of our Grow Dat community including many staff persons were present at the incident and were affected. Fortunately, no one from our Grow Dat Team was injured during the shooting.

For updates about the Big 7 and their fundriasing efforts to parade again this June and support those harmed by the shooting, visit their Facebook page.

Leo’s groove and passionate spirit will carry on!

Leo breaking it down in the splits at the beginning of the parade last Sunday

QuarterlyUpdateSpring2013

Click the link above to download the PDF for the inside scoop about our 2013 program so far

Youth Crew Members Storie and Cory harvest greens to be sold at Saturday markets across New Orleans

Our Harvest Volunteer Days (for individuals) this spring/summer are:

• Tuesdays (8am-11am)
• Fridays (8am-11am)

Come help us harvest and prepare our produce for distribution. Volunteers will prep both our donated Shared Harvest and the crops youth Crew Members will sell at Saturday Farmer’s Markets around the city.

For Groups:
For group volunteers we suggest a $7 donation per Volunteer to cover supplies and staff time for the volunteer event. Please contact Jabari Brown to discuss bringing your group to Grow Dat.

We have various needs and opportunities for many other volunteer tasks – please email Jabari Brown, Volunteer Coordinator and Youth Education Specialist at  jabari1@growdatyouthfarm.org for more information.

Come work in our beautiful fields – we appreciate your support of our work to grow food for New Orleans!

C

“According to Gilligan, the most rewarding aspect of her job is the chance to work with young adults. She feels that teens are an untapped resource, and Grow Dat helps them become their best selves. Furthermore, the program encourages students from all over the New Orleans metropolitan area to work together, forging friendships among students from many different public and private high schools. Lastly, both Gilligan and the students love the opportunity to work with their hands and spend a great deal of time outdoors.”

Check out the full article on MyNewOrleans.

The mushroom installation has fruited! Artist/Farmers Mei-Ling Holm and David McClelland ran a workshop on the farm several weeks ago while artists in residency at the Joan Mitchell Center. Their beautiful straw baskets are producing a robust crop of tender and flavorful oyster mushrooms.

   

GROW DAT YOUTH FARM TO HOST HOOTENANNY- BARN DANCE BENEFIT
Grab your dancing shoes to cut a rug for a great cause

Thursday, April 18, 7pm-10pm
Grow Dat Youth Farm, 150 Zachary Taylor Drive, City Park

The mission of the Grow Dat Youth Farm is to nurture a diverse group of young leaders through the meaningful work of growing food. You can support these young adults who are growing food for New Orleanians by joining us for the Grow Dat Hootenanny. Proceeds from this Barn Dance Benefit will help us employ 25 young adults to grow 9,000 pounds of food this year!

What: Hootenanny featuring Bruce ‘Sunpie’ Barnes & the Louisiana Sunspots and the Small Batch String Band.  Square dancing led by caller Nathan Harrison will kick off an evening of revelry on the farm.

An ole’ fashioned Cake Walk will showcase tempting cakes from premier NOLA Pastry Chefs: Cochon from the Link Restaurant Group, Maurepas Foods, Domenica, and Boucherie.

When: Thursday, April 18, 7-10 pm

Details:  $15-$20 entry to dance the night away. Fat Falafel and La Cocinita food trucks, craft cocktails and ice cold beer on-hand. All tickets, food and drink sales benefit local teens growing food for New Orleans!

Sponsored by Slow Food NOLA

Purchase tickets now or at the door: http://barndancebenefit.brownpapertickets.com 

PUT ON YOUR DANCING SHOES AND COME OUT TO THE FARM APRIL 18 TO SUPPORT GROW DAT!

Come assist as we inoculate the sculpture with oyster mushroom spawn!

The Intersection of the Visual and the Edible: A Workshop on How to Turn a Straw Sculpture into a Mushroom

Join artist/farmers Mei-ling Hom and David McClelland for an afternoon workshop at Grow Dat Youth Farm in City Park on how to create a woven straw sculpture and how to inoculate the sculpture with oyster mushroom spawn.

The spawn will grow through the straw and produce a crop of edible mushrooms while digesting the straw and creating a rich compost-like soil amendment. Oyster mushrooms have the amazing ability to eat long chain molecules like the cellulose in wood and straw, and they can even break the molecular links in oil rendering it less toxic to the environment. If that isn’t spectacular enough, oyster mushrooms are carnivorous hunters, capturing nematodes in microscopic lassos and digesting them -mighty feats for a mere fungus! Join us at any time from 1-6 pm for this hands-on workshop exploring the intersection of art and mycoculture.

Rain or shine!
Wednesday, April 10th 1-6pm
Grow Dat Youth Farm
150 Zachary Taylor Dr. in City Park (between Pan American Stadium and Marconi Blvd)

Global Kids Environmental Justice Institute 2012

This afternoon I’m boarding a plane with three Grow Dat Policy Interns – Amber Young, Josh Kemp, and Kamau Johnson – to attend the National Youth Climate Exchange (NYCE) in Pennsylvania.

Grow Dat is honored to join the NYCE, the latest Global Kid’s Human Rights Activist project. Youth from Grow Dat in New Orleans are participating in a 3-day climate action summit with Build it Up West Virginia and Global Kids students from NYC and Washington, DC.

Addressing climate change is key to us at Grow Dat because food system emissions account for  between 19%-29% of all total greenhouse gases. And agricultureaccounts for 80%-86% of emissions within the food system. Check out the infographics from CGIAR:

On our farm, youth grow food using sustainable and chemical-free methods. Our commitment to carbon reduction and environmental stewardship ensures that agriculture is part of the solution, rather than remaining a leading contributor to the problem.

To reduce our carbon footprint, most of the 5-month long fellowship is conducted via Google Hangout and conference calls. This summit is an opportunity for youth to get to know one another face-to-face. Atendees will spend the weekend crafting action plans for environmental justice work in their communities.

Youth in New Orleans know all too well the threat of sea level rise and the fallout of increasingly extreme weather patterns. Their voices are key to understanding the real impacts of a changing climate.

Stay tuned to see these young activists in action upon their return!

-Jeanne Firth
Grow Dat Program Specialist

Ariel Roland, Masters in Social Work at Tulane and serving as our Youth & Alumni Coordinator, crafts beautiful newsletters that youth share with their families and schools each month. We thought you might like a peek at them, too!

Look for Market Leader Amber Young (right, 2nd year Grow Dat worker) at the market every week as she leads rotating crews of new youth employees at the Pop Up Market.

To market to market we go!

Grow Dat is proud to announce New Orleans’ first weekly Pop Up Market! Youth Crew Members will be selling their wares every Saturday this spring at the new Columbia Parc at the Bayou District development (formerly St. Bernard). The market features a wide variety Grow Dat’s fresh, affordable produce grown and sold by local teens.

Grow Dat Pop Up Market
Every Saturday
10:30am-1pm
Columbia Parc at the Bayou District
@ Caton & Duplessis

DEAL ALERT! First time customers get BOGO – Buy One, Get One – on all their produce purchases!

Mobile Farmer’s Market designed by Tulane City Center Architecture student Justin Siragusa

Look for our fancy schmancy mobile farmer’s market that hitches to the back of our farm truck. See it and know that delicious and affordable produce abounds!