On Saturday, we had an awesome group of dedicated weeders, composters, worm feeders, and helpers building out more bins for our compost all while our favorite DJ Titus played some amazing soulful music for us to work to. At the end of the workday we enjoyed ground turkey tacos made by our Youth Ambassadors right on the farm, and they were delicious. Thank you to our USF partners Winnie Mulamba and Will Schanbacher, DJ Titus, our neighbor Brian Peret, School Board Member Caprice Edmond, Sandy Mabery and Elle Vie for continuing to support our work among our many other super volunteers!

Another exciting visit was our Person of Influence we had for March - William Hitchcock aka Chill Will of Chill Will Fresh Cutz. His father Andrew joined him as well as his youngest son. He spoke to our Youth Ambassadors on his journey to becoming a barber, which wasn’t his first dream, and overcoming challenges, generational trauma, and the payoff of hard work and consistency. He gave our young friend of the farm Kevin a fresh haircut as well as our young men in the program. It was amazing to see the engagement around a young entrepreneur and business owner who's right here in South St. Pete that took time out of his day to give back in this way.

A business venture we've talked about pursuing has been raising bees at the farm. We always see them flying around pollinating all the different plants and flowers. When Noble Nectar Apiaries approached us about hosting bees and training our Youth Ambassadors to be Junior Beekeepers through their non-profit The Bee Musketeers, we said YES! Allison from Noble Nectar came by the farm to speak with our Ambassadors to help us better understand the process of raising bees and why it’s important work aside from getting to harvest delicious honey. We definitely believe beekeeping is an effort to save the world and we can’t wait to harvest our first batch of Youth Farm honey in Fall!

Aside from our big Community Workdays, we’re constantly working with so many different people and planning ways we can further engage the community. We love having groups come out to tour and volunteer; our latest group was the middle and high schoolers from Bethel Community Baptist Church. They brought a group of 20 young people who spent time with us, tried different food we're growing around the farm, and had a fun pigeon pea shelling competition! Contact us if you'd like to bring your group or business to the farm.

Volunteer opportunities, job opportunities for teens, our first movie night, and so much more coming up. #TogetherWeGrow