Opal® is known as the apple with a purpose and is distributing up to $150,000 in grants to charities through its Youth Make a Difference Initiative. The Opal Apple Youth Make a Difference award grants to youth-based initiatives serving their communities in the U.S. where youth, ages 6 – 25, take leadership roles in the initiative and address one or more issues of food security, nutrition, agriculture, food politics, and/or food education.
Our Youth Programs applied and are a semifinalist in the contest for their project titled Farming Forward: Vertical Farming. Vertical Farming is a futuristic farming practice used to grow produce vertically in greenhouses located in urban city environments. This practice provides a solution to growing fresh fruits and vegetables in a community that does not have large amounts of land available for cropping.
Participants came up with the Farming Forward idea after building a relationship with the Boston Science Museum. The Museum had created a Vertical Farming curriculum and needed sites to test their work and NWBRV was selected as one of the pilot sites. Program staff and youth provided the Museum with feedback to help shape their program and caught the Vertical Farming bug.
Funding from Opal Apple would cover the cost of the The Farming Forward: Vertical Farming initiative, which will highlight food education, agriculture, nutrition and food security to our participating youth. Through weekly enrichment classes, hands-on gardening in addition to field trips, youth will learn valuable STEM skills such as the engineering of building the brackets and hypothesizing water and light distribution as well as biology and nutrition. Residents and program participants in the Constitution Hill neighborhood of Woonsocket live in a food dessert with limited access to fresh produce so our participants will distribute some produce to surrounding residents and use the remainder to cook for themselves during enrichment classes at the program.
Voting is open from April 15-May 15, 2015. Vote Here! You can only vote once so please share with all you know!
In addition to this award, NWBRV is working to sustain our Vertical Farms over time. Please consider a donation to our Youth Programs to help continue our STEAM projects and combat food insecurity for the Constitution Hill neighborhood.
