About
What We Do
What is Supa Fresh Youth Farm?
Our Vision & Mission
Cultivate the future!
To cultivate self-sufficient, confident and joyful youth who enthusiastically pursue their career and life goals through internships, training and entrepreneurship.
Supa Fresh Youth Farm is an established Social Purpose Enterprise that has employed and trained underserved youth, ages 16-24, in the Tigard-Tualatin School District (TTSD) and Southeast Washington County since 2009, and serves as a learning space that provides rich experiential vocational opportunities for youth.
Supa Fresh Youth Farm is a component of the YouthSource program, and is administered by the non-profit organization, Impact NW, located in Portland. YouthSource is funded by Worksystems Inc. through a grant from the Department of Labor, The City of Tigard, as well as other grants, corporate and private donations, and farm profits.
Supa Fresh Youth Farm, which started with just four raised beds at the Durham Education Center Alternative High School, has grown into a learning space that includes three 1/4 acre gardens, located in Tigard, Oregon at the Creekside Community High School, Durham Elementary School, and Metzger Elementary School. The farm employs up to 50 youth per year in paid internships that include Work Readiness Training, Leadership Development and Support Services. The hands-on, student-centered approach to learning at the farm empowers and supports youth to learn by doing.
At the farm, youth earn money, develop transferable work skills and earn school credits while learning about sustainable agricultural practices, environmental stewardship, and healthy nutritional habits. Youth also develop entrepreneurial skills, learn about business management, customer service, marketing, and teamwork by running a farm stand, online soap business, and operating a CSA.
The farmers grow a variety of produce, herbs, and flowers using sustainable, organic techniques. We use ZERO chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides on our crops.
Proceeds from the farm go toward paying the farmers and purchasing tools and supplies, and 20% of the produce grown at the farm is donated to an onsite culinary program as well as a student accessible food pantry.
Who are the farmers?
They are hardworking youth from the Tigard-Tualatin area, who want to learn employment and life skills while making the world a better place.
They are the future.
Our Programs
YouthSource
YouthSource serves youth in Southeast Washington County to help them identify and pursue their career goals. We provide pre-employment training and work-based learning opportunities to help youth transition successfully to college.
Supa Fresh Youth Farm
Local farm that employs and trains underserved youth, ages 16-24, in the Tigard-Tualatin School District (TTSD) and Southeast Washington County since 2009.
Supa Fresh Soap Co.
Handmade local soap created by underserved youth. Your purchase supports youth in developing entrepreneurial skills, learn about business management, customer service, marketing, and teamwork.
History
We started as YouthSource, a workforce development program for youth, in 2008 and added the summer jobs program with some of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA, (aka stimulus money) after Obama was first elected in 2009. That summer of 2009 we employed over 70 youth in the community and one of them helped manage four raised beds at the Durham Education Center (now called Creekside Community High School), which was where we ran the summer program. The youth (Brad Rowell) had a great experience taking care of the plants and some of our youth enjoyed harvesting and eating them—things like strawberries and cherry tomatoes–yum. It was just a fun side project until one day when Mia was walking her dog (Bailey, may he RIP <3) after school at neighboring Durham Elementary School and he accidentally got off his leash and ran to the back of the field. Bailey led Mia to an abandoned and overgrown garden next to the school that had been managed in the past by a teacher.
Impact NW
Supa Fresh is a part of the YouthSource program, the nonprofit organization, Impact NW.
When the teacher retired the garden was forgotten and had nearly been taken back by the weeds. Mia immediately thought of the youth in the program and proposed the idea of fixing up the garden to Katrin (the Goose to her Maverick) as a way to teach them crucial skills that would help them in the workforce. Many youth in the program were going into internships with no work experience at all and so she wanted to create a workspace where it was safe to fail; where youth could learn and practice being good employees in order to achieve greater success in their future employment.
Mia suggested they have the youth do internships supervised by them cleaning up the garden, and then they could grow basil and make pesto to sell. Katrin loved this idea and gave it a lot of thought on her way home. On that drive she saw a truck transporting chickens in small, miserable metal cages to be slaughtered and she realized as she looked at this horrible vision of our food system that they could not only teach youth to be amazing employees, but they could also help them become better humans and stewards of their environment at the farm. The following day she spoke to Mia and they agreed they could start an actual farm and teach youth nearly everything there from work skills to life skills and beyond. The school agreed to let them use the property. Mia’s strong background in the private sector and experience with social purpose enterprises combined with Katrin’s experience as an educator and curriculum developer lead them to create the Supa Fresh Youth Farm.
CCHS
YouthSource/Supa Fresh program headquarters are located at Creekside Community High School.
Over the years the farm has made many connections in the community, with fellow farmers, youth programs, parents, children, politicians, educators, other organizations and many other community members. The youth have run farmer’s markets, a farm stand, a CSA, plant sale and holiday bazaar. They have worked on designing and building a park, hosted events, led large groups of volunteers, gone on countless adventures and camping trips and so much more. Mia collaborated with the school district and secured the initial funding to create the Hub program; the farm and YouthSource staff helped her and the district launch that program, and provide additional support and training for students who attend. The Hub has since been adopted by the school district and works still to partner with the program. The farm also serves youth in Creekside Community High School and the other TTSD high schools, as well as disengaged opportunity youth. It expanded to serve elementary students in the Sprouts mentoring program and in 2017 served over 1300 TTSD students.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At the heart of our approach is the recognition that historically marginalized and underserved individuals and families across all cultures and identities in the areas where we work face similar barriers to accessing services such as: isolation, distrust of systems, fear or losing their children, institutionalized racism, stigma, cost, language, and culture. We address these challenges across all activities and services by providing trauma-informed, strengths based, culturally responsive programming that empowers individuals and families who have been historically marginalized and underserved to reach their personal goals.
Values
- Equity
- Restorative Justice
- Youth Leadership & Input in all elements
- Kindness
- Collaboration
- Frugality
- Environmental stewardship
- Environmental justice
- Healthy habits
- Intergenerational connections
- Community and service learning
- Leadership
- Resilience
- Respect
- Trauma-Informed
- Problem-Solving
- Strength-Based
- Value each other’s humanity
- Be Pirates Wizards/Witches