A Day in the Life of a Young Leader

Our CitySprouts summer is in full swing! Thank you to our summer staff for making this a fun summer and to our Summer Young Leaders Program youth for bringing their joy, curiosity, and energy forward! With two more weeks to go in the program, we’re excited to share some highlights we’ve had so far. More to come!

Our Summer Young Leaders Program is a 5-week summer program for middle schoolers with an experience rooted in gardening, cooking, building community, STEM, and making friends! With the help of our amazing summer staff and our university partners, we are able to serve Boston and Cambridge youth with a memorable summer.

Youth establish community guidelines to ensure a fruitful and fun summer program!

Garden time

Students learn about different propagation techniques using potatoes and sweet potatoes.

All sites start the day with tending to the garden.

Admire our colorful harvests of scallion, sage, basil, tomatoes, and carrots!

STEM activities

An excited youth shows off his red cabbage pH tests!

Students push the boundaries with the Science of Spice lesson testing wasabi, hot sauce, garlic, ginger, black pepper all on one cracker. Spicyyyyyy!

Youth create nature collages from hand picked items from the garden, acknowledging and using the beauty of our gardens.

Community field trips

A field trip to the Dark Matter Garden with our founding director, Jane! The Dark Matter Garden is a garden cultivated by a local community member whose purpose is to bring peace and healing to the community.

A field trip to the floating wetland on the Charles with the Charles River Conservancy, where students learn about the important role plants play in improving water quality.

We hope you can join us next summer! See you in September.

The most important part of tending to a garden.

The pH of some common kitchen items surprises participants.

Students grate carrots and chopped garlic for a Friday slaw recipe.

Worms make great friends!

At the Dark Matter Garden, our youth learn about different parts of the garden, which includes solitary bees, the role of running water, and how to take care of tropical plants in a New England winter.