Over the years, I’ve noticed that our programs have evolved alongside the development of our youth. When the farm program started in 2012, New City Neighbors didn’t have substantial activities for high school students. Youth employment was simply a logical next step for our middle school bakery program. We had built strong relationships with key youth through middle school and we were seeing real impact. We needed a program that kept the momentum going.
In 2022, as we emerged on the other side of COVID, the high school farm and café program—once an extension of the middle school bakery program—became the core of our work. During that season, we also began to see youth employees graduate high school and join our adult staff. Former youth became interns and apprentices, and all-stars like Avrey and Sierra became permanent full-time staff members.
This is what “Growing Neighborhood Leaders” looks like. It’s a long, slow process that prioritizes journeying with youth in a way that empowers them to fully participate in fostering a neighborhood where everyone contributes, rather than focusing on short-term wins.
Purchasing the new property on Ball Avenue last winter was an unexpected surprise, but the vision for its future isn’t new to our team. Since at least 2020, the farm crew and leadership team have often daydreamed about a farm that would allow new and beginning farmers to incubate their own farm businesses. It’s a logical next step in what we sometimes refer to as a beginning farmer pipeline—an evolving model we’re developing in partnership with local farmers, the USDA, WMEAC, and the Kent County Food Policy Council.
The steps in this model are meant to overcome the numerous barriers to urban farming. Step one in the pipeline is exposure to farming along with basic job skills training (youth employment). Step two is technical training combined with flexible employment (farm apprentices). Step three is farm incubation—a safe space to pilot farm businesses. Step four is farm start-up support. With the purchase of the Ball site, we believe we are ready to expand into step three as an organization. We are ready to start growing more than vegetables; we are ready to start growing farmers.
Growing vegetables for market is incredibly hard work. It requires a full spectrum of small-business skills, including marketing, business planning, and accounting. It also demands technical skills to build the infrastructure needed for efficient small-scale vegetable production—plumbing, electrical work, construction, and knowledge of zoning and building codes. And even with all those skills, farmers need access to affordable land that is free of contaminants with access to water. Oh yeah, and then they actually need to grow the vegetables.
As I reflect on my own journey as a vegetable farmer, I’m proud of the hard work and talent that have contributed to my success. But I’m also fully aware that I wouldn’t have persisted in this work without privilege, previously gained skills, and a ton of community support.
The first privilege I had was being the son of a small business owner. I wasn’t exactly a model youth—I may or may not have been suspended more than six times in middle school and early high school. What saved me during that time was my father, who owned a stucco contracting business. During my first middle school suspension (is throwing smoke bombs out the window of a bus really that bad?), I was forced to go to work with him and assigned the task of cleaning up the job site. He told me with tough love, “This work will show you why you better stay in school.” In truth, those three days of work taught me something school hadn’t: Work can be fun, it requires skill, and it is often fulfilling. That work turned into summer jobs, which became college jobs, exposing me to the trades and giving me financial independence. Later, when opportunities arose to build pizza ovens or renovate the NCN Farmhouse, I was ready.
My story is important because at a time when I could have been disregarded as a “troubled youth,” I was instead given the unearned benefit of the doubt, loved, and invested in. That experience is the foundation of my passion for youth employment.
But if we are going to grow farmers, we need to go beyond youth employment. Our hope for the Ball property is that it will serve as a training center, equipping passionate, talented, hard-working youth and young adults with the skills to benefit their community through small-scale farming. We plan to devote two of the four tillable acres to moving the production of our social enterprise back into the city, allowing us to continue providing leadership training and employment. But we are expanding our program offerings as well. We are in exciting conversations with the MSU Organic Farm Training program about expanding their certification program—which currently has cohorts in Lansing and Detroit—into a new Grand Rapids cohort, where we will automatically enroll second-year NCN farm apprentices. Additionally, we envision three farm apprentice incubation spaces at the Ball site. Each space would include its own field setup with irrigation and a season extension high tunnel, allowing apprentices to develop and execute their own business plans without worrying about land access or infrastructure. As we grow farmers we hope to foster connections so that the food they are growing stays within the community in a way that is sustainable to the farmer and the neighborhood.
We will need a lot of community support to make this dream a reality. Phase 2 of our On Solid Ground capital campaign will require a complex irrigation system to essentially support four micro-farms, along with extensive soil improvements, a well, electrical service, high tunnels, and a big deer fence. Beyond Phase 2, we have an even larger dream of constructing an agricultural building with shared cold storage, bathrooms, classrooms, and vegetable washing facilities. It may take time, but we believe we can get there.
The time is coming for us to break ground on our new property. Help keep the momentum going and consider contributing to our spring giving goal of $60,000. I am incredibly grateful to Jan and Gordie Moeller and their commitment to sponsoring this work by matching up to $30,000 of donated funds through April 2nd. Let’s work together to have a lasting impact. Click here to donate.
Lance Kraai, Operations Director
