radicle roots
Teen staff are employed throughout the summer to maintain and improve school gardens for the SproutEd program. They also lead garden-based activities for younger kids at the Boys & Girls Club of Newburgh and the Beacon Rec Center Camp.
Radicle Roots program participants engage in training and discussion around food justice and community building. They harvest produce from school gardens and Newburgh’s Downing Park Urban Farm to donate to community food pantries and kitchens.
The Radicle Roots program creates a multidimensional approach to healing the traumas of food apartheid, consumer capitalism, and white supremacy. Our program is responding to the need for Newburgh and Beacon youth to have sovereignty over land and food in their community.
Radicle Roots creates employment opportunities through skills-based training in green jobs for youth. Through partnerships with Our Core in Newburgh, CCE’s Green Teens in Beacon, and Orange and Dutchess Counties’ Summer Youth Employment Programs, teen apprentices are paid fair wages for their work with LtL throughout the summer.
Radicle Roots, informed by formalized feedback from youth participants, reimagines a world that prioritizes collective ownership of food and land. It celebrates intergenerational connections to ancestral knowledge while sustaining healing and regenerative relationships with nourishing ecosystems.
Participating youth in the program have developed stronger community connections and share their excitement with younger youth through other garden-based education programs. Returning participants have described their experiences in mentorship roles for youth in their community and have learned about growing healthy relationships; they have also deepened their appreciation for growing and maintaining their own food. These experiences provide transformative relationships while also creating spaces for healing, mutual respect, and understanding.
“patience,” “hard work,” “teamwork,” “cooperation,” “friendship,” “courage,” and “responsibility.”
-Radicle Roots participants naming important skills gained during their time working with LtL
“I learned that I can take on the challenge of being a leader.”
-Radicle Roots Newburgh participant
“I changed my whole major because of working here because now I love nature and farming.”
-Radicle Roots Newburgh participant