Renew America Success Stories

Alemany Youth Farm

SAN FRANCISCO LEAGUE OF URBAN GARDENERS (SLUG)

Description

The Alemany Youth Farm, a project of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), is a multifaceted project that trains and employs residents from the surrounding low-income communities in the construction and maintenance of an urban farm. The Farm also provides vocational training, formal education and opportunities for future small-business employment.

Founded 13 years ago to help revitalize and provide local residents a community focus, to teach valuable skills, and to provide fresh produce through community gardens, SLUG's Alemany Farm provides not only these benefits, but works to provide both formal education and employment, in many cases goals that are difficult to attain for urban youth. "It's a whole cycle we're addressing, not just one issue," says SLUG Executive Director Mohammed Nuru. "The garden has become a place far beyond a mere plot of ground that grows vegetables. The emphasis is that you can come here and learn or meet your neighbors or do something that creates and builds community rather than tears it down."

Through the Youth Garden Internship Program, 30 teens work at the farm part time during the school year and full time during the summer growing organic produce that is distributed in the community. With an unemployment rate of over 80% in the Alemany area (compared with 6% citywide), the competition for the jobs at the garden is stiff, with nearly 100 applicants for the 30 positions last year. Students are paid $6 to $8 an hour, above the minimum wage they would earn at a fast food restaurant or other business that typically employs teens.

As part of the program, youths take courses from the City College of San Francisco, earning college credits by attending courses on horticulture, conflict resolution, AIDS and sex education, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and African American history.

"We're not selling drugs like we used to, we're not dead like we're supposed to be, and we're not in jail like we should be," says intern Bhanica Adams.

With visitors from as far away as Tanzania and Australia and as nearby as Oakland, Nuru says he hopes Alemany will serve as a model for reshaping ailing communities everywhere. Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young has stopped by, as well as Jim Lyons, the Undersecretary for Natural Resources and the Environment at the United States Department of Agriculture, and Barry McCaffrey, U.S. Drug Czar. "Everyone's impressed," says Nuru.

Program Highlights

Alemany Urban Youth Farm

• Contained on a four-acre site west of the Alemany Housing Development, the Farm combines a community garden, a greenhouse, edible landscaping, a materials resource center and alternative energy sources. Wetlands, creeks, and habitat for native plants and animals will be restored.
• Through the Youth Garden Internship program, 30 teens work at the farm part-time during the school year and full-time during the summer.
• Teens attend city college and take courses on horticulture, conflict resolution, AIDS and sex education, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and African American history.
• An animal farm will be constructed to educate visitors about the interconnected life cycles of insects, plants, and animals, and their reliance on a healthy, clean environment.
• A fruit orchard will grow apples, persimmons, plums, figs, loquats, guavas, olives and other crops selected on the basis of climate, disease resistance and marketability.
• A bee habitat for honey production will be developed.
• Other features include a children's interpretive garden, composting/chipping area, border plantings of native and drought-tolerant plants, and restored wetlands and creeks.

• This program is being developed to offer outdoor conservation education programs to low-income area youth. Providing field trips to 1,500 culturally diverse, inner-city students in 50 classrooms, the program will invite elementary, middle and high school classrooms to help restore sections of the Farm. Students will plant native vegetation, restore the flow of the creek into the wetland area, and create habitat for native birds and insects.
• Students will also participate in community service activities, including restoring native plants to Bernal Heights hill with the Bernal Heights Habitat Restoration Project, participating in Clean-A-Creek days, and starting school butterfly and native plant gardens.

• This program works to revitalize urban communities by providing training and helping establish youth-owned and -operated community businesses. To date, SLUG has opened a specialty foods business ("Urban Herbals") that sells several herbal vinegars and fresh strawberry jam, all of which are made with produce grown in SLUG gardens.
• The organization sells "SLUG Wear," including caps and T-shirts emblazoned with their smiling slug logo.
• SLUG has also developed a wood-chipping operation, charging a small fee to residents to convert wood chips to mulch.
• Future plans include adding hot sauces to the food business, establishing flower and produce stands, establishing a native plant landscaping business and opening a facility in the Hunters-Point community featuring a cafe, fitness center, and daycare center.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: SLUG manages its numerous programs, projects and initiatives in cooperation with the San Francisco Housing Authority; City College of San Francisco; Department of Recreation and Parks; Mayor's Office of Children, Youth and their Families; Neighborhood Green Corps; California Native Plant Society; Juvenile Hall Probation Department; San Francisco Unified School District; Resident Management Councils; Grandparents Who Care; and other organizations.

Budget: $1.6 million annually. Core funding comes grants and contracts with the city Recreation and Parks Department to run 40 urban gardens.

Select Projects:

Alemany Urban Youth Farm: $445,270.

Schools Conservation Education Program: $99,000. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has provided a $34,000 challenge grant and the Educational Foundation of America has provided a grant of $35,000.

Community Served: Low-income youth residing in public housing in the San Francisco area.

Measures of Success:

SLUG currently employs more than 200 youth from San Francisco's Public Housing communities.

SLUG has helped create more than 100 neighborhood gardens throughout San Francisco. SLUG currently manages 40 such gardens with the financial assistance of the city's Recreation and Parks Department.

In 1994, 25 people graduated from the Landscape and Economic Development Program, the first of its kind in the country. Graduates receive certificates in horticulture and landscape construction.

50 teenagers graduated from the Alemany Farm in August 1995.

Approximately one-third of the Alemany orchard has been planted.

SLUG  manages a community garden that provides fresh produce for 30 Alemany area households.

Success stories designed by Mark Nowak

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