Mykel Taylor wrote this piece for the Lewiston Tribune Online.
Commentary: By Mykel Taylor
June 15, 2009
As a long-time resident of rural communities in Montana, Kansas and now eastern Washington, the streets of Seattle seem like a foreign country to me. It is easy for me to get lost and it is hard for me not to stare.
This is especially true of the homeless people I see on the city streets. I am struck by their appearance as well as their behaviors and I don't understand how they arrived at this place in life. I assume they are there because of poor choices, mental illness or substance abuse. But when I learned that the ranks of homeless people in Seattle include about 800 kids, it was a little harder for me to rationalize their situation.
The person who brought this reality to my attention was Janice Dilworth, coordinator of the Seattle Youth Garden Works. I met Janice last fall when her organization contacted the School of Economic Sciences at WSU about conducting a feasibility study for their garden at Marra Farm in the Seattle neighborhood of South Park. The study was requested to determine strategies for an acre of intensive vegetable production and marketing of produce by SYGW at farmer's markets or through subscription agriculture programs. Doug Young and I were recruited to work on the project.
It would have been a pretty straightforward study, except when we learned that their workforce is comprised of homeless and at-risk youth with little or no job skills, they have more youth counselors than experienced farmers and they operate primarily on grants and private donations. The kinds of constraints that SYGW operates under are not typical of the commercial agriculture that drives Washington's economy. However, a team of WSU Extension faculty including agricultural economists, horticulture specialists, soil scientists, and others were intrigued by the challenge and eager to help out.
SYGW's mission is to provide education and temporary employment to homeless and at-risk youth, aged 14 to 21. Their program is based on the production and direct marketing of produce from two gardens in the University District and South Park neighborhoods.
If SYGW is successful, the youth who graduate from their program will use their experience working in the gardens to re-enter society by becoming gainfully employed, returning to school, and/or securing housing. It is a tall order to help these kids achieve all this after only 12 weeks working in the gardens, but SYGW finds success by engaging the youth and reconnecting them with basic food production and marketing.
SYGW's business feasibility study was completed this spring and they will have to work hard to implement the strategies that were recommended. However, Young and I, and all the other WSU Extension faculty who were engaged in this project are planning to keep a close eye on SYGW. Their continuing success means that agriculture is changing lives and, if you have any connection with food production, this should make you very proud.
If you would like to learn more about Seattle Youth Garden Works and their activities, please visit their website at www.sygw.org
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Taylor is an assistant professor and Extension economist at Washington State University in Pullman. She may be contacted m_taylor (at) wsu.edu.
