Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area Fellowship 2024: Supporting Food Sovereignty through Garden Education and Capacity Building in San Jose (Round 2)

Overview

Valley Verde is dedicated to building healthy and resilient communities by providing low-income families educational programs, edible gardens, and micro-entrepreneurship opportunities that create food security and lead to self-sufficiency. We accomplish this in our Shared Garden Program where we provide home garden supplies, monthly gardening workshops, mentorship, and garden visits to address the needs of food access and food insecurity in the community.

About the Fellowship

Valley Verde is seeking two fellows to support the following projects:

Homeland Nursery

We grow over 80 different types of seedlings not commonly found in grocery stores (okra, bittermelon, heirloom corn, hot habanero pepper, etc). Our Homeland Nursery is open to the public to support community members in growing their own culturally-relevant foods that are important to their recipes and traditions. Our goal is for the nursery to generate enough revenue to allow us to become self-sufficient.

To help generate profit, an intern would help us establish a strong, repeat customer base through marketing and outreach. In addition to the initial development, the intern would also identify a plan for continued nursery success. Another, smaller, program to support operations sustainability is the Super Sprouts kits, a gardening kit and online curriculum for children to learn how to grow seedlings at home.

Translating program curriculum

Currently curriculum has been developed for all programs and most has already been translated into Spanish. We aim to continue translating program materials into Spanish as well as expand into Vietnamese. This effort is integral to our strategy of including and empowering families to engage in their own food sovereignty. 

Volunteer program development

We receive requests from individual and corporate volunteers on a regular basis. To make the most use of their additional capacity, we would like to develop regular volunteer positions throughout our programs (including composting, weeding, planting etc). The summer fellow would help us define these roles, as well as recruit, coordinate, and train volunteers to participate in our programs.

Decreasing food waste in San Jose by becoming a Composting Hub

Valley Verde has initiated a composting program that collects food scraps in exchange for finished compost, teaches compost skills and provides a resource for families that lack space to compost at home. Our effort will support ecologically sustainable food systems by mitigating food waste from entering landfills, supplying nutrients for productive home gardens, and engaging the community in the process. During this initial phase, the program needs to be highly visible and accessible by developing partnerships and community connections. The summer fellow will help create a communications campaign to promote our compost program, identify community partners to regularly collect food scraps from, join composting networks, and improve data collection methods.

Valley Verde is seeking a fellow passionate about food security, sustainability, community engagement, and education for Summer 2024 in support of our goals. 

Preferred qualifications: 

• Experience working in a multiethnic community environment and have multicultural literacy.

• Ability to develop professional relationships with program participants regardless of language barriers, cultural differences, or physical/mental abilities.

• Knowledge of gardening, food justice, and environmental topics.

• Written and verbal skills in Spanish or Vietnamese if possible.

• Skills in grassroots marketing, curriculum development, and community engagement.

Stipend

Undergraduate Cardinal Quarter Fellows receive a base stipend of $6,500 (+$500 cost of living adjustment for the Bay Area) to support living expenses during the fellowship. Financial aid and supplemental funding may be available to students who qualify (learn more here). 

Students in a 2-year Masters program will receive a stipend of $8,500. Students who have begun their coterm programs (i.e., students who are paying for graduate tuition) will also receive a stipend of $8,500.