Fort Greene Teens Keeping it FRESH With Food!

"I don't want to teach people half of what I know, I want to teach them everything I know," said Eddith Sanchez as she reflected on her personal goals for the Fort Greene FRESH Teens program.

Eddith is one of six teenagers from the neighborhood who, over 16 weeks, from July through October, is participating in the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project's (MARP) new Fort Greene FRESH Teens program.

The FRESH Teens program is building a community of informed, active youth from the neighborhood by connecting them with the practices of growing, cooking, eating and shopping for fresh food. The youth will walk away as "community food educators" for their communities. They will have the ability to make informed decisions about the food they eat, and the tools to educate other youth to do the same.

In addition to Eddith, who is 15 years old, lives in the Farragut Houses and enjoys bowling and cooking, the FRESH Teens include 14 year old Evelyn Fernandez, who is a resident of the Whitman Houses and loves to dance and help people learn; 16 year old Christina Carpenter, a resident of the Ingersoll Houses, who wants to get into acting; 17 year old Imani Collins, who lives on Myrtle in Clinton Hill and studies the arts; 14 year old Cyndi Vazquez, who is a rising freshman at Dr. Susan S. McKinney High School; and 17 year old Shakeem Carpenter, a resident of the Ingersoll Houses, who plays basketball for his school and admits to being "one of the best players alive."

In the summer months, the FRESH Teens are exploring health and nutrition, disparities in food access, how to cook fresh food, and urban farming practices, among other things. This includes interactive workshops, as well as field trips to the Central Brooklyn Public Health Office, East New York Farms!, and Fort Greene's own Ingersoll Garden of Eden. In the fall, the teens will be trained in a variety of leadership skills, from public speaking to workshop facilitation to how to use social media to engage other youth with food.

And engaging other youth is exactly what they will do. Once their skills are solidified, the youth will design workshops based on what they have learned, and lead those workshops at local schools and community centers. These workshops will not only serve as their first foray into community food education, but they will also be an opportunity for the youth to do outreach, getting their peers excited for a neighborhood youth food summit. The summit, which will be a gathering of around 50 youth from the neighborhood, will occur during the first week of November, and will be organized by the FRESH Teens themselves. The summit will serve as an opportunity for a large group of youth in the neighborhood to get together in one place, participate in educational workshops, and strategize around creative ways for youth to play a role in improving Fort Greene's food environment.

The FRESH Teens program is a part of MARP's Myrtle Eats Fresh Initiative, which includes a number of projects that engage community members in activities to improve access to healthy, affordable food on Myrtle Avenue, and in the surrounding neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. In addition to the FRESH Teens program, projects include a weekly community-run farm stand (Thursdays, 4-7pm at 177 Myrtle), a community chefs program, creating and expanding community gardens on public housing grounds, and the formation of a neighborhood food policy task force.

Please Note: Our Myrtle Eats Fresh KICK-OFF CELEBRATION is taking place at our farm stand on Thursday, August 12, from 4:30pm-5:30pm. The farm stand is located next to the Ingersoll Community Center, at 177 Myrtle. Come on out!

Look out for blog posts over the next few months from the FRESH Teens themselves!

For more information about the FRESH Teens program, please contact Sam Lipschultz at (718) 230-1689 or sam@myrtleavenue.org.