Learning About Food, Nutrition, and the Environment

The LEAF program has had a great spring season! With the help of many dedicated volunteers and our Youth Program Coordinator Toussaint Tingling-Clemmons, we've been teaching enthusiastic youth from the neighborhood about healthy eating and sustainable agriculture. The program is on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays (Sunday is the busiest!) from 4:30pm to 6:00pm. Come by the farm to see the new pizza garden, tended by youth! We're also very excited about the Summer Youth Program, launching this June! Over 30 fantastic youth ages 14-17 applied and interviewed for this structured summer job program, it was difficult to choose only 16 youth. Summer youth participants will be working on the farm and around the community to support sustainability, diversity, and empowerment, while learning valuable leadership and teamwork skills. We've also hosted a dozen school groups on the farm just this spring, from around DC and around the country. Students get out of the classroom for up to two hours to learn hands-on where food comes from! Our new beehive has been quite an attraction: "The visits from students around the area were fantastic examples of how excited kids get when they see where food comes from. The students ranged in age from 9 to 12 but could not have acted any more like grownup farmers by the way they were treating the farm as a whole. We checked the hive and found the queen healthy and producing eggs. Students even had the gumption to collect samples near the hive and inspect frames without any protective gear." - Jon Lever, Bee Guy and CGCF volunteer Watch this video about Cleveland Elementary's visit on October 11, 2011! Watch here if the video doesn't show up below!

We're excited about our many visiting groups and would like to thank the following schools for coming to our farm: Capitol Hill Day School E. L. Haynes Paul Public Charter School Aiton Elementary And thanks to our school group visitors from out of town: BBYO Panim (from all around the country!) Buxton School (from Massachusetts!) Santos Flores (from North Carolina!)