Youth-Led, Solutions-Oriented

Growing Food and Sustainability emerged out of two sisters’ wish to give back to the community in which they grew up. Our organization focuses on experiential education for youth in the Middleton and Madison area through projects such as gardening at a youth farm, cooking, composting, and biking--all with the aim of exploring sustainable and community-minded living practices. We believe in the power of young people and work with them to forge what we hope will be a more thoughtful and exploratory world for all.

Growing Food and Sustainability gives community members the opportunity to learn about and experience sustainable agriculture, empowers young people to make positive change in their world, and provides access to fresh fruits and vegetables to those in need.  Through our summer garden camp, after school program, and involvement with the high school Ecology Clubs, our organization gives Middleton community members of all ages the opportunity to engage in environmental education and food production.   As a space where multiple age groups interact, teach, and learn together, the garden creates a greater sense of community in Middleton while encouraging youth to continually rise to the next level of responsibility and leadership.  By incorporating the gardens into class projects, we provide Middleton students with new opportunities to learn academic material in an interactive, project-based environment.

In our first year, we made large strides towards making Middleton more sustainable, and we also empowered young people to make healthier choices and take a more active role in the shaping of their community.  We can’t wait to accomplish even more this year, with your help!

Training a New Generation of Youth Leaders

One of Growing Food and Sustainability’s core goals is to train and inspire a new generation of youth leaders to create their own solutions to the world’s challenges.  Our Indiegogo campaign is focused on raising money for stipends so that we can train youth through our summer internship program.  Last summer, two local college students participated in our internship.  This summer, we plan to select five interns to participate in this leadership development experience.  Interns learn through peer-lead trainings as well as by taking an active, hands-on role in our organization. They learn how to plan curriculum for the summer garden camp, serve as camp counselors, workshop leaders, and meeting facilitators, coordinate community workdays, harvest days, the weekly compost pick-up, and the weekly produce delivery, and will learn green entrepreneurship skills by helping to run our farmers’ market stand.   Our goal is to make sure that every graduate of our internship program leaves with the skills and knowledge to start an initiative of their own.

Though our experience has proven that young people of all ages do care about current social and environmental issues, we realize that summer jobs must often take precedence over unpaid programs. By providing stipends to interns, we will make sure that these opportunities for enrichment and growth are available to all.  Through our model of peer-to-peer training and collaboration, we believe that summer interns will develop leadership and organizational skills that will prepare them for the future as much or more as any summer job.

Growing Food and Sustainability, with your help, will deepen our roots in Middleton and provide young people with the opportunity to grow and thrive as leaders within their communities. We believe in the great accomplishments that can be had by planting seeds of change; through the strength of our youth, we plan to do just that--one garden at a time.

Thank you!!

How Your Contribution Will Change the World!

Your contribution will make a direct impact in our sustainability leadership training program by allowing us to pay the stipends of 3 of our summer interns!  Would you like to hear the personal stories of two of the interns we have selected so far?  Read our blog post featuring Katie and Morgan, two lovely ladies who volunteered with Growing Food and Sustainability last year and decided to take the dive into a summer internship this year!

If you are unable to make a donation but live in the area, please join us for a community workday or an upcoming event! 

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