City Heights

The school garden at Crawford High School is an internship program in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee San Diego. Looking to foster the idea that organic farming is a possible career opportunity for urban youth who are often disconnected from the food system, the IRC New Roots Youth Garden Program trains students to develop job skills and introduces them to a food justice curriculum.
In the garden, we meet IRC mentor Kaley Hearnsberger teaching the farming trade, and students Perla Hernandez, Ntiriniga Etienne, and Valerie Christinat demonstrating the school’s salad bar compost program. Etienne, who grew up in a Tanzanian refugee camp, reminisces of when his mother would compost to grow fresh vegetables at the refugee camp.
Filmed in 2011, originally for Speak City Heights.