What you’ll hear in this episode:

• How Urban Roots nourishes young people and the community-at-large
• What Urban Roots is and what they do
• How to get involved with Urban Roots

Like so many other great ideas, Urban Roots was born out of a failure. Max Elliot was originally hired to start an after school gardening program at a middle school in Austin. The goal was to get young people excited about growing their own food and eating the food they were growing, but it just didn’t seem like it was having the impact on the youth that it potentially could. So, Elliot decided to think bigger. He started researching best practices from all over the country and went to local farmers, educators, and huger relief advocates to figure out what kind of program would work best in Austin. He even did focus groups with more than 100 young people to see what sort of experiences would be most beneficial to them. When it was all said and done, he came up with Urban Roots.

Urban Roots is a community farm in East Austin, but it’s so much more than that. They provide young people with paid internship opportunities to grow food, learn new skills, and make a difference in their community. In the program, the interns help grow thousands of pounds of fresh foods on the farm while leading volunteers in service and collaborating with peers from different schools and backgrounds.

One of the main objectives of the program is for young people to learn about food justice. Food justice, Elliot says, “is trying to think about people. And thinking, as the food system doesn’t feel equal, how can we get more people involved?”

“There are a lot of low-income neighborhoods that don’t have access to healthy, affordable foods,” Elliot explains to Great Society host Constance Dykhuizen, “They also have a high incidence of diet-related diseases so, why is that? It’s because the built environments that the cities have designed, as far as sidewalks, and access to parks, and access to grocery stores aren’t equitable. So most of the more affluent areas have access to those built environments and situations that can support healthier eating healthy behaviors.”

Urban Roots is trying to get young people, sometimes from those low-income neighborhoods, directly involved in food justice solutions. Listen to the fourth episode of Great Society to hear more details about the great work Urban Roots is doing with Austin youth. You’ll hear about the awesome students they’ve worked with and what’s next for the project. If you like what you hear! Please share the episode with friends or family!

Great Society is a founding_media podcast created in partnership with Constance Dykhuizen.

Host: Constance Dykhuizen

Guest: Max Elliot, Urban Roots

 

Transcript:
this is a founding media podcast
hi everyone welcome to great society the podcast about people who are working elevate the voices of others I’m your host Constance Dykhuizen and my guest today is Max Elliott executive director of urban roots a nonprofit that cultivates leadership skills your food and farming to transform the lives of young people and inspire engage and nourish the community Max and I talked about urban roots is rockstar farm interns how do we gauge and food justice and our favorite vegetables here’s my conversation with Max
thanks thanks for having me it’s an exciting time for urban routes last year you celebrated ten years we did yeah ten years can you can you tell me a little bit about how you got to ten years it’s been a long journey you know so we were so are members of the youth development organization first and foremost and I was originally hired to do an after school gardening project at west middle school by an organization called you for lunch three changes about giving young people the chance to learn transformative skills through long term group based service and they have very different issue areas around teenage pregnancy prevention teenage alcohol abuse prevention and then gardening so very different issue areas but with the same theory of change and so we tried doing after school garden project in getting young people excited about growing food excited about eating the food that they were growing and the idea was that they would donate or give back to the community with the harvest that they grew and I love school gardens they are amazing and important but the kind of impact that we are hoping to have we really didn’t see at that school we also tried out in another middle school in south Austin and so as I had said to you for lunch I said if we really believe in this issue area he thinks expandable gardening is a great way to give young people the chance to give back to their community I think we need to think bigger and so I said if you guys are willing and happy to research best practices around the country there are a couple of dozen urban youth farms mostly along the coasts east and west coasts New England specifically and they said yes you know give it a shot so we we learned a lot in the next few months and then we had a community gathering of local farmers educators hunger relief advocates to say this is what we think we want to bring to the community what do you think is Austin ready for this and the next question is do you want to help and so that served as the foundation for first community council but then we were done we wanted to get your feedback from young people so we did focus groups with over a hundred twenty youth from all the east Austin public schools and said Hey this is something we think might be good for you but what do you think would you be interested in doing this and we got a lot of great feedback from the young people and so they were excited about having a paid internship all of our programs are paid paid internships for the youth it’s really important and they’re eager and excited to get involved and so the next thing we did was look for land look for funding and that took about a year all of the communities men and and look for lance our first season was in two thousand eight when we went to an existing farm where we just worked borrowed a field was about an acre of land and we did that for six months and it was great as far as from a start up perspective because all the infrastructure was already there we just had to provide transportation for youth into enough fundraising for staff and for you Stephens and little bit of farm supplies it was a really great way to test our model and this was two thousand eight in in Austin there’s been a lot of changes and lasting into many well you know the the economy nationally was crashing but I think that our model really spoke to a lot of people because it gave people a sense of hope and opportunity and it was also the food movement was really starting to take off too and so you started to see this huge surge of interest in local food scene the farm to table movement and lots of restaurants that were really doing amazing stuff first on and take off creation of edible Austin as well and so we were been you know started crowd surfing the that food movement so after that first year we got a lot of publicity kind of a media Darling of sorts and so we got in the local papers in local news stories because again I think they’re excited to celebrate something new and when we would go out and tell our story to the community every time there be at least a couple of people that would hang out to the back and they would be compelled to tell the story of what it was like when they were a child and when they went to their uncle’s farm for the summer or when they used to work alongside the grandmother harvesting beans so these food stories are embedded within us and I think very they need the right opportunity to come out and that’s the beautiful thing about the spirit of our work is freezing food is this and farming is the agent of change for young people to really learn about themselves and a great way to build community at the same time so that’s a little bit how we got started
that’s awesome can you walk me through it for use wants to get involved or how they go through the application process and what is their year look like with you or their time of service yes we have a few different programs now so we were with you fought for the first four years and then we became our own nonprofit in the fall of two thousand eleven so we become an independent agency since then so ten years of programming total number still eight years as an independent agency and since then we’ve all kind of us a suite of different programs most of them are still serving high school students the main one that we’ve been doing for ten years as our farm internship program for high school students and this is the first year it’s gonna be a summer program where it’s gonna be seven weeks they have to be in high school the applicants have to fill out an application they get a letter of reference from somebody other than their parents and then we interview everybody that applies and so each year we interview about eighty to a hundred young people who are excited to work a long silence on our farm in east Austin and receive a paid stipends for that it’s gonna be exciting about I’ve heard that some of the kids first jobs you know the first time you get a paycheck or to get paid so that’s exciting yeah it is it’s a lot of firsts you know from first time receiving a paycheck for the first time being on a farm for a lot of young people the first time they pull carried out of the ground and and eat it first time there so the farm is is the foundation of what we do but we use that to do some different things from cooking classes to workshops about food justice and identity and then we go out into the community like and and serve those in need like we go to carriage house in the summer and prepare meals with food that they grow as well
what is food justice can you expand on that a little bit for me for people that are gonna turn yellow food justice is it’s a growing importance I think we people talk about food tends to separate so we talk about food deserts a lot of people in in people kind of get a sense of like wild desert doesn’t have a lot of things in it and so neighborhoods that don’t have a lot of access to healthy affordable foods have been termed a food desert but that is the complicated term and so food justice is trying to think about people and thinking as the food system doesn’t feel equal how can we get more people involved in so if you think about environmental justice vermin justices of about the most environmental issues that adversely affect our communities adversely affect underserved communities in low income communities so they’re low income communities are more likely to have greater incidence of asthma because of air pollution or they’re going to be next to landfills and that kind of thing where they’re gonna have like in flint Michigan they have their water contaminated and so that’s environmental justice and so we think of food justice in the same way there a lot of low income neighborhoods that don’t have access to healthy affordable foods they also have high incidence of diet related diseases so and why is that it’s because the built environments that the cities have designed as far as sidewalks and access to parks and access to grocery stores and aren’t equitable so most of more fluent areas have access to those built environment it’s situations that can support healthier eating healthy behaviors
so do you see work with are just absolutely tremendous like every time I come to the farm there’s exceptional they’re giving tours they’re they’re funny like there we explaining things they speak in front of lots and lots of people at some of your events do you develop that you look for Pete for kids that have that kind of innate ability or how do you get such amazing kids is basically what I’m asking for all young people are amazing that and we really try to recruit a diverse group of young people from all walks of life so some young people have some strong leadership development skills are developed before they walk in the door I would see a greater percentage of the young people we work with our little more introverted are a lot more shy have not had a lot of leadership development opportunities presented to them but what we do well is create a very structured support environment for youth to really take a lot of risks positive risks and they do that through really hands on leadership development and a lot of public facing work so for example we host about a thousand volunteers on our farm every year and if you come out on a Saturday and I know you do get each has thirty average it’s my favorite volunteer opportunity in Austin for sure because you just get to go out and be outside hang out with people learn stuff you get to steal some of the food at the end I know you give it away like for you know he’ll like stealing because you walk away with all these great organic kale and things but the best experience via and so I’m glad you have a great experience and for the youth it’s really powerful more powerful too because not only are we all working together to get a lot of work done but the volunteers provide leadership development opportunities so the youth hostess and sees the practice public speaking on the farm to about sixty volunteers and their peers and then the crew leaders are all young people leading the adults through all the different farm tasks so that’s one way that we do that we also sell we donate forty percent of what we go to soup kitchens and food pantries and we sell the rest at local farmers markets and so you come to our farmers market stand the you’ll it’ll be led by young people as well and so they get these great opportunities to practice their public speaking customer service farmers market math farmers farmers markets can be pretty stressful situations sometimes and so it’s a great opportunity for them to develop some great social skills and then we do a lot of public speaking training we have open houses on our farm we have large events and all of our events are all about giving young people a chance to tell their stories and their experiences
working with use how do you get them excited about being outside in the Texas heat in the summer how do you get them excited about food justice like is there an introductory period where you can have to teach them or do you find that they’re pretty open to doing the work and they they understand the connection kind of immediately because I know you get really excited about food but I don’t know if if you do or if they don’t you can you can you can tell me yeah I mean I think you’ve come at this from every different lots of different places some young people come to us excited about growing food and they want to become farmers I would sing more young people that we work with aren’t really sure what they’re getting into I think they’re an intrigued by a paid internship where they get to learn how to grow food but more importantly I think there’s more interest in how to cook it young people are saying about learning how to give back to their community but food is this thing that you know bonds us all together we all eat in every culture has a connection to land in some way but it starts with food starts with eating and I think that’s where there’s a sense of celebration in our work is because we have these great meals that are we create rituals around for different holidays and different days of significance and there are farmers that same space so we what I say is our farms is healthy built environment where young people are trying new foods for the first time they’ve never seen a kohlrabi before or maybe never have pulled the tomato off the vine for the first time but because the environment is kind of encouraging and supportive they’re willing to try these foods and so it’s through the eating that becomes the curiosity the heart of the work in the fields is is challenging and I think that there’s a certain sense of rigor that if young people really exert themselves and they feel really tired in a day doing it with a group of their peers and knowing knowing that they leaned in to gather to get this thing done creates a sense of pride it creates that sense of esteem they don’t come on to the farm with that we also play lots of team building games we have yeah I was sitting in the family yeah we play lots of games I mean the pharmacist or vehicle we spend less than fifty percent of the time that we work with young people actually doing hands on agriculture but the time that we do spend farming it’s really important we focus and kind of push each other were card
is their story that sticks out to you about a specific student or even employee I guess about how food or farming transformed their view of things how they’ve learned through food yes Quincy is somebody that works with us currently she’s a great student she came you know with college track you know minds but she really did she knew she was going to college but she really wasn’t sure what her passion was and she came to urban roots in agriculture just kind of woke her up in a way and I was so curious about how food was grown I think the eating I think was she already had that but she was curious about how things grew and then what she saw her peers really get excited and how and how food was grown and how they could serve their communities it Hey I wanna I wanna take this back to my school she was a high school in Kyle and so she told her story about a vision that she has to have a school garden so that she can share with her her students fellow students and somebody urban roots in the audience that Hey I want to support that vision and so they work together and worked with their administrator and some teachers and so now they’ve built a garden after school that she’s really excited about and proud of
that’s awesome can you walk me through means not only are you developing all these young people and running all these programs but you’re also running a farm house kind of the business end of the farm can you give me a tour of the farm with a year on the farm what happens on the farm yes to our farm is inherently inefficient it’s that by design we celebrate inefficiency it’s about three acres of vegetables and it’s it’s inefficient by design because everything we do is is done by hand we do have a tractor where we cultivate the soil incorporate cover crops but we plant everything and all the transplants all the seeds we pull all the weeds we do all the harvesting by hand and that is not the most efficient way to run a business over run a production farm but our vet the value we see is for everybody to have contact with the land and have contact with the plants so you can get that get that deeper connection then that’s the the value there but overall we’re going about thirty thousand pounds of produce it’s about forty to fifty different types of fruits vegetables and herbs were the farmers in full production in the spring and summer and then we plant some cover crops which are things that helpful plants that essentially give back to the soil they are harvested for food but we tell them under to help nourish the the soil and in the fall we do about half the farming production so many many folks come out to the farm and I say that our farmers it’s it’s a community farm and I think one of my favorite former quote says that the the best fertilizer on the farm is the farmer’s footsteps and that is celebrating the firing that is really intentional and curious and spends a lot of time getting to know the land and I think as our pharmacy community farm it becomes most alive when there’s a lot of people out there that are helping nurture and and and yeah take care of it too
yeah I was gonna ask one of part of your mission statement is to engage in inspiring gauging nursed a community can you tell me why that’s in your mission statement like this by the community play such a big role urban right yes so it is a two part mission so we use food farm to transform the lives of young people that’s the first for the first part in inspiring gauging nearest the communities the second part our model are you developing models really unique in that we don’t work in isolation with young people we created very curated experience for youth to they grow but it’s the the the community members kind of encouraging and supporting their growth it makes the youth transformation so powerful so you for example going out to volunteer is providing that leadership development in that audience that opportunity for them to practice as leadership development public speaking skills same thing that way what we’re at the farmers market we could sell our produce to a grocery store and we do sometimes but the farmers market is so much more impactful I think for our customers that are really inspired by a scene young people engaged in the food movement and it’s really engaging and and powerful for the youth to get that customer interaction and to see customers really lit up by the the quality of the produce that we’re growing and so the community impact is rooted helps dictates the the youth transformation and we grow a lot of food that goes outside the farm so we want to we think of ourselves as a a great vehicle for the community to really learn where food comes from so as a volunteer and you walk away with you know learning more about seasonality of of Austin’s kind of food system and kind of farm season and we distribute you know forty percent of soup kitchens and food pantries so we’re nourishing kind of our emergency food system network can and hopefully raising awareness about the importance of equitable food access as well
one of the things that I think is also unique is that you have such a great relationship with restaurants and chefs and like the service industry like it’s really fun to see how they come on the field on to the to the farm and on the field and kind of seem to get inspired by the youth so my favorite meals I’ve ever had in Austin have been on that farm you guys have really magical awesome farm nights do you have a specific chef or meal or food that you really remember connect with on the farm I I think we’re so fortunate in Austin to have such a rich and if the restaurant community in the in the farm to table movement has has really I think it’s made our work that much more powerful and we’re really fortunate that the chefs are so generous with their time to come work alongside you through a lot of young people a lot of the chefs see themselves in the youth that we work with and they say man I wish I had this farm experience when I was their age that would maybe a better chef or chefs who told me Hey I need some support when I was in high school and if this would’ve been perfect for me and so they really generous with their time just a few weeks ago for mean the head chef over at swear today used to work over longer at in the Contessa he took a crew of our youth and to swear today its kitchen and showed them how to make masa from scratch is super special and it’s kind of this backstage pass like educational experience but also talking about cultural food traditions of Hamas’s created traditionally in Mexico and so to be able to not only share this unique practice but then tell the story it was really important for me and really resonate with youth that we serve and so that was a really special treat him
what’s next for urban routes will have coming up yes so we have been operating in our current form for the last ten years of our farms in a flood plain so that means years ago I got a really bad flood right two thousand fifteen yeah it flooded a couple of times a lot of places in Austin did and we’re right along boggy creek the farms is a beautiful kind of refuge it is kind of an oasis along by the creek but that limits the kind of infrastructure that we really would like to build an income and hits us to be able to grow so we’ve been looking for long term permanent Homer second site for a long time in just the last six months Austin city council approved a resolution to give us a long term lease for a second location that would be about nine acres in southeast Austin and it’s for two fifteen year lease terms so we’re thrilled to start that process to work in southeast Austin we haven’t really worked in southeast Austin we’ve been primarily focused in central east Austin the farm is adjacent to dove springs seventy seven four four and that neighborhood has been designated as that has it does not have a grocery store India has limited access to healthy affordable foods and so we’re excited over the next couple years to really get to know that neighborhood and treaty you flick communication process to build some strong relationships to a explore some collaborations and then also to think about how we can distribute produce from our current form but then also the future farm to see how we can address some of the food access needs there yeah
if you want to get involved in the food justice movement I know you you were inspired by other farms I know that you’ve spawned other projects as well but how do you how do you recommend people get involved in the food justice movement yeah you know every city has a has a different way to get involved and engaged we’re fortunate that we have a handful of food organizations that are doing this kind of work in Austin sustainable food center is is doing some of this work I think nationally I’m really inspired by that food for black thought they’re doing some really interesting work we’re based here now there in Milwaukee sold our farm is is a group out in the east coast doing really interesting work but you know you can learn about what we do on our website urban roots ATX. dot O. R. G. and as I said there’s a couple of dozen and use farm programs scattered around the country and we have informal gatherings and conferences every every so often and so it’s it’s empowering for young people doing this work in somewhat isolation within their communities to to connect with you from other cities to
as consumers how should we be thinking about food like at the grocery store or should we only go to farmers markets are how should we think about food as well as consumers and as purchasers yeah I think farmers markets are a great way to connect with the grower and and really get that direct sales and farmers really thrive on on the that’s the greatest market opportunity for them but to me food is really about relationships and I think the value of a local food community is that we get a chance to connect with the growers in the growers can connect with the consumers and so yeah you can kind of get a deeper story I mean I think food has a chance to that nourishes in more ways than one and getting to know the farmer in the pharmacy this is a great way to do that so farming the farmers markets are a great way to do that you can look at fine local produce and and local grocery stores as well in in organics is it is a great label but organic can mean something that’s grown halfway across the world and might not have the kind of sustainable impacts just because it has an organic label
okay yeah this is the most important question I ask you what is your favorite vegetable my favorite visual aids okra hands yeah so hard to pick I learned that at the farm it are you wearing gloves and long sleeves yes I did tell her so I do but it was still always end up I end up walking away itching that’s true I’d like harvesting it because you’re standing up yeah so it’s easier on my back I think the flowers are beautiful it’s related to the discus and and cotton is in that kind of mallow family so it’s really pretty too as far as crew goes I love it fried of course a grilled is amazing taste like popcorn and I love to pickle it as well and so okay yeah using it in aspen kills my favorite yeah but I think to walk away with it
so my last question is a question that I ask everybody how do you define success for yourself for the work of urban roots is it use involvement is it dollars raised as it pounds of food grown like how do you evaluate and measure your program we evaluated in lots of ways so for young people we really are measuring gains of knowledge and perceptions around life and job leadership skills are they getting healthy relationships with food and do they feel that they have a sense of social responsibility so the that’s kind of some of the outcomes that we’re asking young people so we do that through pre and post tests we also do focus groups with young people to kind of really get a an honest perspective of their experience with us we do post surveys with parents so that we can get a sense for how the parents experienced the their youths time at urban roots a lot of transformation always yeah the parents are always think wow they take up so much they take more responsibility at home they bring home that schools use get to take home as much produce is that they want so the the parents are always going it’s like wow I I would have paid for this experience for my first name I don’t know if you look at but so that’s that’s kind of how we measure the by we do you know hold ourselves accountable to certain output so we do set annual production goals and we made a commitment to donate forty percent of what we grow to soup kitchens and food pantries and so that’s a that’s an organizational commitment but from for us to really to define success it’s that this work is transformative for youth okay that was my second last question then I guess what can you give me an example of a use that has really hasn’t changed their perspective going on to do a career in something kind of related to gonna take a program take a class work in a restaurant anything like that that really kind of inspires you yeah so I’ll just talk about breeze for example breeze was with us and two thousand eight he had emancipated himself when he was in high school and so he did not have a lot of support a lot of other students that we are working with did he’s going to an alternative high school here in town and it was a stretch for him to show up every single day and to be on time and we worked with him he grew a lot and he is this a very dynamic engaging young person who when he walks in the room everybody doesn’t he rap for exacting I’ve heard and seen perform so before he start rapping one of the things that he did was we have a celebration of family feast the kind of celebrates the end of the season and all these accomplishments and to celebrate his crew his groups achievements he performed a rap and so we like to say that that that stays on the farm is the first days that he performed on and that kind of launched his rap careers have up here and he’s gone on to gain a lot of confidence in his performance skills he’s gotten involved in a lot of other local organizations and has traveled to Africa to volunteer he’s been on tour with this about troop in France and then collaborations there and he’s also been to the thing Quinn prison to performance also kind of provide support for prisoners there and so the public speaking or can embody presence that I think that he gained entrance has really served him in such an inspiring way for me thank you for that story and your time today really appreciate it I look forward to my next meal on the farm yeah it’s going to be but it’s always great tell you look for to have you out there can can very much you’re welcome thank you all
thanks so much to my guest Max Elliott to follow Max urban roots cut urban roots eighty X. dot O. R. G. we’ll put the link in the show notes the great society team includes me Constance I cues and producer Mariah gossip and audio engineer Jake Wallace thank you to everyone it founding media for your support don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode or maybe leave us a review on iTunes to help other folks on the show thanks for listening