Harvest Kitchen recently had the pleasure of hosting a group from Southside Community Land Trust’s Youth Employment Program. The program engages roughly 20 Providence and Pawtucket high school students in efforts that span Southside Community Land Trust’s (SCLT) food system work. Paid youth staff conduct community outreach about farmers markets and food access, assist City Farm in its urban food production, co-lead classes for SCLT’s summer children’s learning program, and participate in workshops and field trips that expand their knowledge of agriculture, their community, and civic engagement.
As part of the “training shift” component of their program, SCLT’s youth learn about food handling and processing. The group’s visit to Harvest Kitchen included a tour of our commercial kitchen and local-foods café, and a discussion about sustainability and reducing food waste on local farms by increasing the ability to produce value-added products using locally sourced ingredients (like our line of youth-made products).
The group of 15 then moved into the kitchen to begin processing fresh basil and garlic harvested from SCLT’s Somerset Hayward Community Farm into delicious basil pesto. The quarter-acre micro farm located off of Broad Street in South Providence is the home of SCLT’s youth employment and summer learning programs.
