Denver

WHY?

Denver’s Curtis Park neighborhood enjoys proximity to the resources of a city center, yet healthy food access and employment are serious needs in this community that need to be supported. We go here because of the strength of the community partners and the reality that they are already doing Solutionary work. We also see that conventional responses are failing or inadequate. We believe that we have the power to work together to change the inequity in our world and in our city.

Holding onto our values of sustainability, prosperity, justice, and community we are going to train one another to be social innovators for our local, self-sustaining initiatives. We are going to do hands-on work reaching towards the world in which we wish to live. We are going to do this through collaboration with the local community and its organizations.

HOW?

Denver’s Summer of Solutions program finds itself in its first year connected to a few strong community partners who are working for justice in growing, buying, and eating healthy produce. Denver’s program leader has been working with the Slow Food chapter in Denver along with Cooking Matters during his year of service. Slow Food Denver supports over 40 school gardens in Denver Public Schools and needs help during the summer to keep the gardens productive and beautiful. Cooking Matters coordinates cooking and nutrition classes with chefs and nutritionists to teach methods to buy and prepare healthy food on a budget. They offer courses for many different age groups, including teens. 

Denver’s program leader has reached out to Green Leaf, which engages youth in urban agriculture, farming on available lots in neighborhoods that don’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. At GreenLeaf young people ages 14 – 18 earn a fair wage while they grow food for their communities and explore issues of health, nutrition, and social justice. The diverse crew of youth interns drives GreenLeaf’s innovative and project-based curriculum of intensive leadership development and asset-based community building. The young people also grow, challenging themselves and each other in an environment that creates lasting, just, and sustainable social change.

PROGRAM

Starting at the beginning of June, Denver’s Summer of Solutions will connect Green Leaf with Cooking Matters and Slow Food Denver to add a cooking and nutrition class along with workshops and more opportunities for gardening in Denver. Denver’s solutionaries will be a part of Green Leaf’s mentorship program which supports the youth interns in fun activities and farming. Solutionaries will spend the morning half of each week at GreenLeaf farming and building leadership at Denver Housing Authority’s Sustainability Park in the Curtis Park neighborhood.

Each afternoon we will rotate through maintaining school gardens within biking distance, workshops, and a Cooking Matters course. Workshops to be planned will include: farming skills, basic animal husbandry, basic food preparation, edible landscapes, food preservation, food justice, the regional ecosystem, soil building, beekeeping, entrepreneurial skills, and other beneficial topics that present themselves. 

GOALS

  • To become well connected in Denver urban agriculture, and know who to go to for mentorship, work, or other connections
  • To know what it takes to start, run and maintain a successful urban farm or garden
  • To strengthen the community by creating multi-age mentoring relationships at GreenLeaf
  • To empower youth to grow food for themselves, their families, and their community
  • To develop, train and support new, young leaders

CONTACT INFO:

Program Leader: Chris Morgan christopher.p.morgan@gmail.com