We believe that a pathway for leadership that activates spaces where community leaders can invest their power and wisdom towards systemic change is strongest when it is community centered, diverse, and inter-generational.
Why diverse and intergenerational?
Systemic inequity in our food system affects our community at every stage of life. We’ve found that working across generational lines simultaneously builds a deeper understanding of systemic injustice while cultivating new traditions honoring voice, power, and decision-making among our multicultural grassroots leadership group.
What is a community engagement cohort?
Community engagement is not just a one time event or festival. At Cultivate we aim to create and implement systems and practices that actively engage grassroots community members across the scope of Cultivate’s work. Launched when students in the Buford MIddle School Garden Aide Class said they wanted to continue to work in their school garden over the summer, we began building paid opportunities for youth and adults. These cohorts come together as teams, build food justice knowledge and capacity, and work across a specific time frame, with specific goals in mind.
Youth Food Justice Interns (high school students): City Schoolyard Garden program hosts an eight-week summer youth food justice program for up to twelve city students. Youth care for the schoolyard gardens, cultivate team building practices, and have two core capacity building units on food justice and healthy school meals.
Food Justice Apprentices (young adults around 18-24): Food Justice Apprentices are part of a cross-program cohort designed to build leadership opportunities for young adults who have come through the K-12 Cultivate initiatives while strengthening Cultivate’s effectiveness and community voice. The Food Justice Apprentices have three primary responsibilities including: supporting a specific program area of Cultivate’s work, advancing a cross-program advocacy campaign, and building capacity as a cohort of peer learners and leaders. The Food Justice Apprentices also support special projects across the organization as needed.
Food Justice Community Advocates (resident leaders -adults and elders): The Food Justice Community Advocates cohort aims to amplify community leadership and be a bridge with city leaders around critical issues of food equity and racial justice in Charlottesville. This paid six-month cohort has been focusing on The Power to Grow campaign and engaged over 300 residents in building a vision for urban agriculture in Charlottesville.
