New Summer Staff !!!
By: Riley Box
New City Neighbors is a community based organization that helps mentor and employ high school students. This summer 20 students will work for either the New City Farm, New City Day Camp, or New City Cafe. We have a lot of new students joining the farm staff this summer. The youth program has always been a big part of the New City Neighbors’ mission of empowering youth to reach their full potential. For many of our students this is their first real job! The first year students will be interns earning stipends, and our returning staff get paid hourly. A typical summer for our students is filled with exciting experiences. On the farm, the students are currently learning harvesting techniques for all the vegetables in the CSA. The students also get to enjoy learning kitchen skills from Joel. These skills include learning proper cutting techniques, and turning our farm fresh veggies into delicious dishes. These skills transfer over to working in the cafe, as students prepare oven-baked pizzas, soups, and salads (New City Cafe opens next week Thursday, June 28). Last week in the kitchen a few of our students learned how to make jam with our strawberries!
This week is the first week with our new staff members who will be working in all of New City Neighbors’ programs. Yesterday (Tuesday) we had staff orientation, and played ice breaker games. At the beginning of the day, everyone sat in silence. One of the games we played asked staff members to write down interesting facts about themselves. The catch of the game was each staff member got someone else’s facts and had to figure out whose facts they had. This game provided conversation to help us get to know each other (and the nametags helped too!). After orientation everyone was talking and the ice was officially broken. Our new staff members are a well rounded group, with both outgoing and introverted personalities. After playing ice breakers, the students got to tour New City Neighbors and the farm. The energy from orientation was very exciting, and many of the students mentioned that they were excited to get to work. At CSA pick-up you will start to see some new faces, so give our new staff members a warm welcome!
