Urban Roots is a youth development program that uses sustainable agriculture as means to effect lasting change for youth participants, and to nourish East Austin residents who currently have limited access to healthy foods. Young people will cultivate a local 2 - 5 acre, diversified organic farm, selling a portion of their harvest in the Austin area and donating a portion to local hunger relief programs. Through this process young people can connect to the land and learn the benefits of growing, eating, selling and donating organic food, as well as leadership, entrepreneurial and life skills, and the importance of giving back to their community. For more information, contact Max Elliott.

Urban Roots is built on our successful SEEDS program, an after-school gardening program at Webb Middle School in 2006-07, where students worked in an organic garden, learned about the environment through service projects, and gained valuable life skills.

YouthLaunch staff conducted strategic planning sessions with over 120 students at all of the public and charter high schools in East Austin in summer 2007. Click here for the results of the focus groups.