I’m Adam, age 16, from Concord MA. This summer, I will be working as one of the eight Urban Education and Outreach interns working at The Food Project. This relatively new internship is the result of the mixture of two previous internships: BLAST and Urban Education. Our internship is based in Dorchester, where we spend a lot of time working with local gardeners to improve their knowledge and understanding of healthy gardening in the city. One place where we work particularly often is on the Urban Learning Farm (ULF). We started working on the ULF only a few months ago and have made tremendous amounts of progress, but we still have a long way to go. The farm is composed of 20 raised beds, lined up neatly in two rows.

Raised beds offer a solution to protecting the vegetables from the lead-contaminated soil below. Ultimately, we hope to pave the paths with woodchips, surround the perimeter with berry bushes, and complete the pretty picture with some kind of sundial in the middle. Although we still have a long way to go before we realize this goal, we are well on our way to success.

At the Urban Learning Farm, we meet with local gardeners as well as school groups and other members of the community. We will work closely with these people on the garden, as well as educate them about healthy gardening in the city. The vegetables that we harvest from the garden will be given to these local gardeners and youth, and the fruit is sold weekly at our Farmer’s Market at the Dudley Town Common. I’m looking forward this summer to meeting local gardeners as we continue to work on our newest food lot.