Happy Holidays from our
Youth Farm Family to yours!
2022 was quite the year for us, from building to installing our aquaponic and hydroponic greenhouse to our 3rd Birthday Celebration. We’ve been growing food, fish, and more! But most importantly, cultivating our Youth Ambassadors into the leaders their families and communities will benefit from for years to come. Though we endured the loss of one of our former Ambassadors, we strive to work towards making changes and leading actions that will help prevent these unfortunate losses in the future.
We want to thank Youth Leadership Pinellas and their 40+ youth leaders for coming out to learn more about what we do at the Youth Farm this past month. We also welcomed back McKinsey & Company for a group volunteer day. They were great and helped us get more beds prepped for Spring planting.
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We had a really fun time earlier this month. We spent an afternoon at the Cohort of Champions Winter Wonderland enjoying the festivities. We were also invited to the Racewithoutism Bur Gala, thanks to President Danny White. The dinner was a fabulous evening of good food, culture, and the importance of having hard conversations about race. Some of our Ambassadors also went to experience the Artz 4 Life production of Family Blessing with amazing dancing and drumming. That same day a few of our youth helped pack the van that we took down to Mt. Olive AME to distribute to the people who still have needs in Ft. Myers.
We did so much in 2022!
- Held 21 events at the farm with over 900+ attendees (with one more to go!)
- Hosted over 20+ groups for tours/volunteer days accounting for over 350+ youth and adults
- Hired 25+ new Youth Ambassadors
- Harvested tons of kale, mustards, collards, bell peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, pigeon peas, lettuce, bananas, and more, all shared with the community!
- Started our mini-garden project and gave away over 180 mini-gardens for free this year with 4+ plants in each
- Started our aquaponic journey with 40 tilapia and ended the year with 90
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December Highlight - First Fish Harvest |
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+ 50 New Tilapia Fingerlings! |
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To prepare for the harvest on Kwanzaa, we spent time with our Youth to harvest our first batch of tilapia. This was so exciting for us, especially those who remember them when they were only tiny fingerlings we had in the little aquarium back in June. Now they’re approximately 1lb each and we’ll be teaching how to descale, gut, and fillet the fish as well as allow them to prepare their tilapia to their liking for our last day of programming for Fall 2022.
We also received our new tilapia fingerlings a couple of weeks ago to keep a steady count of tilapia as we harvest. We have our second batch of 50 new babies in the aquarium tank. This has been such an amazing journey for us. Be sure to come out for Kwanzaa to experience it for yourselves!
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4th Annual Kwanzaa at the Farm!
Join us for a day of Unity on the First Night of Kwanzaa at the Farm on Monday, December 26th at 5:30pm. Gallerie 909 has been hosting the First Night for 9 years, and we've been fortunate to celebrate with the backdrop of the harvest for what will be our 4th Annual Celebration! Check out last year's celebration video.
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We stress the importance of culture at the farm, and Kwanzaa is all about African-American culture based on the traditional African harvest festivals. Read more about Kwanzaa here.
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Our annual MLK Day of Service event at the Farm is a great way to kick off the New Year! Come out in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Organizations, companies, and other groups are welcome to join! We'll be prepping beds, weeding, planting, composting, and doing other various projects around the farm - like our new sidewalk community garden.
Make it a day ON not a day OFF.
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Upcoming events with Youth Farm in 2023, mark your calendars!
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Sat, January 28th at 9am - Community Workday
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Sat, February 18th at 10am - Tampa Bay Collard Green Festival
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Sat, February 25th at 9am - Black History Month Workday
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Sat, March 25th at 9am - Women's History Month Workday
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