The mission of the Youth Outreach Initiative is to actively engage students, from Kindergarten to College, on nutrition, fitness, community, prevention, recovery, and agriculture through activities which allow them to be educated appropriately and safely using the platform of workshops, camps, field trips, events, and life sharing.
In Class Workshops
Curriculum (flexible depending on age group and school)
- Anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour per class depending on the subject material
- 1 to 2 staff members or speakers from F4H at school to speak to students.
- Hands-on learning devices where applicable, typically provided by F4H
- May require set up the day before.
- Topics to include, but not limited to, aquaponics, bee pollination, earthworm aeration, composting, agriculture, nutrition, fitness, drug addiction, prevention, recidivism, recovery, and the criminal justice system.
Field Trips
Students are introduced to the F4H staff and the mission of Farming 4 Hunger upon arrival. Then, they’re split into small stations for harvesting, planting, fitness, nutrition, agricultural education, feeding the animals, and other farm-related activities. While the students help with different aspects of the farm, they learn about the importance of volunteering and helping their community along with how to create healthy minds and bodies. Finally, depending on the grade level, they get the opportunity to be involved with Life Sharing by speakers who have chosen the wrong path in life but are experiencing a second chance.
Athletic Team Building
Team Building is typically 2.5 to 3 hours and involves the following:
- Engaging student-athletes in local community outreach and problem-solving through agriculture projects, small group discussion, life sharing, and physical exercise.
- Increasing awareness and utilization of positive coping methods for pivotal life circumstances such as the death of loved ones, divorce, severe illness, drugs, and alcohol.
- Establishing bonds with local athletic teams, in turn, strengthening our community support network.
- Community Outreach Work including Harvesting, planting, boxing, weeding, painting, building, working together as a team to accomplish large projects, giving back to the community
Life Sharing
- Long term impacts of what happens off the field
- Real life experience from incarcerated individuals
- Small group breakout sessions
- Student-athlete engagement in one on one conversations
- Problem resolution (student perspective on the solutions to community issues)
Athletics
- Ability to drill or have practices on site
- Ability to do unconventional strength and conditioning training with athletes
- Build upon team outlook and perspectives
Criminal Justice Program
Objectives
- Bridge the gap between incarcerated individuals and high school students through an overall understanding of the criminal justice system from the corrections, law enforcement, and legal perspectives.
- Increase student body engagement in the issues of recidivism and drug addiction prevention through the creation of student body organizations that actively participate in community outreach events involving all aspects of prevention and awareness.
Curriculum (Course will be approximately 4 to 5 Hours)
- Open Q&A with local criminal defense attorneys as well as local judges.
- Open Q&A with local law enforcement officials
- Open Q&A with incarcerated individuals
- Potential Q&A with active members of the drug court system
- Prevention talk points
- Problem resolution breakout session
- Where are breakdown points both within and outside of the judicial system
- Are we setting up individuals for success
- Breakdown and explanation of F4H model
- Suggestion of resources from the community
- How do we get more members of the community to engage
- Establish follow up project either onsite or at school
- Establish a follow-up assignment based on the day’s events
- Allow students a few weeks to create solution presentations
- Students present either at school or onsite.