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Job Posting – Urban Gardening Program Leader, Urban Roots Youth Program
Part-time contract, March 19 to June 29: 20 hours/week; July 3-Aug. 24: 24 hours/week
Wage: Hourly $18.50, contract position.
Reports to Program Director/Volunteer Co-ordinator, Green Thumbs Growing Kids
Green Thumbs Growing Kids works with children, youth and their families to learn about, grow and prepare fresh foods, cultivated in an environmentally sustainable manner, in hands-on programs. We are excited to offer our Urban Roots Youth training and employment program for the second year. The programs take place after school from March through June and during the day in July and August. The successful candidate will have experience working with youth and a working knowledge of greenhouse and garden tasks related to food production.
Schedule: Hours of work will vary, but generally the expectation will be that the Program Leader works one eight-hour day and two six-hour days in spring, and three eight-hour days in summer.
Description of Duties:
 Manage greenhouse and garden-based programs with 12 youth aged 15-29
 Supervise and train volunteers to help run programs
 Promote the Urban Roots Youth program in the community
 Develop, test and refine curriculum relating to food systems, horticulture, urban agriculture, food justice, culturally relevant foods, and food security
 Work with partners to ensure program spaces are full
 Evaluate program with youth participants
 Evaluate and help to hire youth for summer job positions
 Supervise 4 youth during summer

Skills and qualifications:
 Must have a proven track record in supervising and engaging youth
 Must have working knowledge of composting, vermicomposting, greenhouse management, garden or farm experience
 Must have good written and verbal communication skills and a positive attitude
 Must have experience running youth programs
 Must be willing to submit to a criminal reference check for working with vulnerable persons
 Must be able to work with minimal supervision
 Knowledge of current issues in food security, food justice, urban agriculture, nutrition and environmental/sustainability education an asset
 Curriculum development experience an asset
 French language an asset
Green Thumbs Growing Kids is an equal opportunity employer and members of equity-seeking groups are especially encouraged to apply. Only candidates who are short-listed for an interview will be contacted. No phone calls please. Deadline for application: Friday, March 2, 5 pm. Send cover letter and resume to jobs (at) kidsgrowing.ca.

Please check our website at http://www.kidsgrowing.ca/get-involved/volunteers for the postings. You don’t need to be a children’s garden educator or even a gardener! A good heart and a willingness to help are all that’s required. For those with some experience and time, consider becoming a Lead Volunteer in 2012, which comes with a $500 honorarium.

Please check our website at http://www.kidsgrowing.ca/get-involved/jobs for the latest posting.

Susan Hay’s Making a Difference segment on Global TV hit all the right notes. http://bit.ly/s7ghjU

What to do before the weather dips below zero degrees and damages the still-green tomatoes dangling from your plants?

What to do when you want to help farmers and gardeners grow beautiful heirloom pumpkins next year?

Well let me tell you!

Last week we had the pleasure of hosting volunteers from ING Direct Canada  for the day. And boy, did we need them with a full-day of harvest activities at both Winchester and Sprucecourt!

Tasha, Alycia, Jen and Dwayne were wonderful volunteers and I know the children really appreciated their company.

In the morning we brought these beautiful Kakai Pumpkins (Cucurbita pepo) that we procured from our pals at Chocosol to a grade 3 & 4 class at Winchester P.S.. Kakai pumpkins are a Japanese or Austrian variety (depending on who you ask) with gorgeous green and orange stripes, easy to carve skin that are perfect for children’s little hands, and hull-less dark green seeds that are coveted for pumpkin oil production and very tasty to eat!

The students got their hands dirty removing the pulp and sorting the seeds out in order to engage in the age old activity of seed saving. These seeds are going to be dried and given to Chocosol farmers and gardeners so that that they may grow these pumpkins out on a grander scale. Apparently these seeds go quite well with cocoa. Mmmmmmm.

It was fun to also design the carvings.

One of the students even found a kakai pumpkin sprout growing inside!

Scar face kakai pumpkin!

At the end of the pumpkin session I got the students to estimate how many more pumpkins we could potentially grow. If you start out with 5 pumpkins, and end up with approximately, oh let’s say, 1500 seeds, how many pumpkin plants will you end up with? And if each plant produced 5 pumpkins each, how many pumpkins will you end up with in total?!!?!? I like to incorporate mathematics when I can. (GO MULTIPLICATION!)

In the afternoon, the ING team and I were able to work in the Sprucecourt staff kitchen with a group of grade 1 & 2 ESL students making tomato apple chutney, using green tomatoes from the school’s garden.  We also planted some plum trees of the Prunus domestica variety, a gorgeous dark purple or yellow specimen. So fun! Even when the onions’ fumes made a bunch of us cry, we still toughened up and kept going.

How to use knives 101.

Prepping the tomatoes, apples, onions and garlic!

Green tomatoes from the Sprucecourt school garden!

Adding onions and garlic!

Adding brown sugar!

Mixing some spices in!

Ready to cook down!

A good day’s work I say and all around good times!
Shout out to: Tasha, Dwayne, Alycia and Jenn from ING Direct Canada; Ivan and Michael from Chocosol; and Lauren, Mable, David, Cassie, and Liz.

The children at Sprucecourt ate the chutney on crackers the next day! Yum!

And we got this lovely e-mail from one of the Sprucecourt teachers that I have to share:

Hey Sunday,

I just wanted to thank you and Xuan-Yen for the “Chutney” workshop with the kids on Wednesday at Sprucecourt.  They had a wonderful time with the experience and we got some great writing (and tasting) opportunities out it.  My students loved it and were talking about it for the next two days.  Xuan-Yen, it was wonderful working with you.  I would love copies of those pictures when you get a chance to put up on our bulletin board.  I took some more of them writing the steps and ingredients out and tasting it.  If you are interested I can send them your way. 

Also, we would be open to any other workshops before the big freeze ends the season.  If not, definitely in the spring.

All the best,

                   David Cunningham