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The first spring veggies are starting to be harvested and thousands of seedlings are yet to be planted. Summer is waiting on just a little more sun, but fresh, locally grown food will soon begin to flow from our two farms to food pantries and local markets, home with community gardeners to share with friends and family, and be snacked on by our youth interns while they prepare healthy lunches throughout the summer.
Our 4 core programs are the tools that Cultivating Community uses to advance the shared vision that everyone has the right to grow, buy, and eat healthy, local food that is nourishing and meaningful to them. It is what gets us through the busy days when there are more things to do than hours.
Here are just a few of the things that we are excited about this summer –
- Supporting our NASAP farmer training graduates to distribute $230,000 worth of free fresh produce to the community
- Launching our first-ever Community Garden Sponsorship program
- Welcoming more than 50 immigrant and refugee families to the Hurricane Valley Farm Community Garden in Falmouth
- Building new systems and partnerships to make our gardens and farms safer, and more equitable, and welcoming spaces to grow
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Recruitment for our paid summer program, Youth Growers was a huge success! We interviewed an overwhelming number of wonderful Portland public high schoolers and are looking forward to an enriching summer in the garden and kitchen.
Participants will grow food for neighbors, cook lunch daily, work on leadership and communication skills, and deliver free bags of produce, grown by our NASAP farmers, to neighbors in Kennedy Park.
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Meet Our Youth Programs Team
Welcome to Hadil Ramadan and Hibo Abdi, our Youth Grower summer staff. They are Casco Bay High School Graduates, current USM students, and phenomenal leaders. Hadil is a former Youth Grower herself and we are so happy to have her back leading in the garden again!
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Hadil Ramadan
Hadil is a first-year Youth Program Assistant. She was part of the Cultivating Community High School youth program in 2021. When not in the garden, Hadil likes spending time with her family and friends, as well as meeting new people in the community.
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Hibo Abdi
Hibo is a summer intern at Cultivating Community. She lives in Portland and is a nursing student at the University of Southern Maine. She shared, “I love to be outside, which is why I am so excited for my new role as a youth grower associate this summer.†|
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Billie Watson
Billie is happily entering her second year as Cultivating Community’s Youth Programs Manager. She has worked in education and youth enrichment since 2016. She hopes to cook, garden, and build confidence in young people as long as she lives!
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Youth Grower Campaign Update
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Thank you to all of our supporters!
Every year Cultivating Community welcomes approx. 50 teen interns to 3 different programs that highlight our work and give them empowering and hands-on ways to engage with and impact local food systems throughout the seasons.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed, we are SO CLOSE. As of last check, we are just $4,020 away from the $100,000 Spring Youth Growers Internship fundraising goal.
Please contribute if you are able. To get us across the finish line, the Glickman Family Foundation and an anonymous donor have pledged to TRIPLE all gifts for the next week (up to $2,500).
🥕 🥕 🥕 Your $60 becomes $180! (healthy lunches for interns)
Your $250 becomes $750! (van repairs and new tools for the garden)
🫑 🫑 🫑 Your $500 becomes $1,500! (enough for 3 intern stipends)
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“I feel more connected to my community.
Gardening is so good for my mental and physical health.â€
~ Portland community gardener
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The Urban Ag team has been busy welcoming new gardeners into our popular community gardens! Hundreds of people have been on the waitlist for 2-4 years and are thrilled to get a spot finally.
So far, 44 brand new gardeners are settling into their garden plots across our eleven sites throughout Portland. We will continue to contact waitlisted gardeners until all beds have been filled. This year we have brand-new garden beds at the Payson, Riverton, and Valley community gardens.
We’re also excited to share that fences are being installed at several sites! So far, fencing has been completed at Boyd Street Urban Farm and started at the Valley Street and North Street gardens.
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Cultivating Community’s Packard-Littlefield Farm and Hurricane Valley Farm fields have officially been harrowed, fertilized, and tilled. Farmers and gardeners at the farms have already planted over 15,000 seedlings that are provided at a subsidized rate. While the rain has been keeping the fields watered this week, Cultivating Community staff and farmers laid 3,000 feet of irrigation line at Hurricane Valley Farm so we can begin irrigating this season’s crops (pictured below). We are ready for a productive summer.
The produce grown on our farms directly increases food security, not just for the families who grow with us, but for the community as a whole by providing fresh produced to local pantries through Mainers Feeding Mainers, SNAP match at markets and farmstands, and other partnerships.
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 Join us for a FREE family-friendly dinner, meet your neighbors, and explore the gardens with our friends at Wayside Food Programs.
- July 10 at Payson Park
- July 24 at Riverton
- August 7 at Libbytown
- August 21 at Boyd Street
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It is summer in Maine, so it is time to get outside!
Deering High School’s RISE students have been preparing our Boyd Street Urban Farm for the growing season, along with gardeners, and volunteer groups from local businesses. We greatly appreciate the love and care our community gives to our growing spaces.
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Você fala português?
We are looking for a volunteer to translate some of our outreach materials into Portuguese. Interested in helping out? Please email Yannick at: volunteer@cultivatingcommunity.org.
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Our gardens and farms need care, especially during the growing season. With such a small, but capable, staff, we rely on volunteers and groups to help out. So, please sign up and spend some quality time with us.
Beginning in July, we will welcome volunteers for community garden work days every 2nd and 4th Wednesday. Email volunteer@cultivaitngcommunity.org to learn more or RSVP!
It is not just pulling weeds or mulching… it is pulling weeds for a cause, and mulching for a cause!
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We had a great time hosting volunteers from Albin, Randall & Bennett CPA.
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Their work mulching, weeding, and composting at Boyd Street was a huge help to get us summer-ready!
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Thank you to the Portland Food Co-op members for nominating Cultivating Community to be a recipient of their Register Round-Up community giveback program and to all who participated in the voting process to choose local organizations that significantly impact our community through their incredible work.
Congratulations to our fellow Co-op Round-Up nominees: Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project • Preble Street Resource Center • Presente! Maine • Sea Change Yoga • Locker Project • A Company of Girls • Palaver Strings • Birth Roots • Wild Seed Project
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HEADER PHOTO CREDIT: IAN MACLELLAN
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