The LocalHarvest Blog

These days we may know a lot about where our food comes from, but despite the broad array of choices in many grocery stores, access to good food is often a privilege rather than a given. More than ever, it is important to recognize communities who come together to provide sustenance to people who need it and support the good work they do. With this in mind, I looked forward to the chance to visit the Food Works Farm of Sauvie Island, near Portland Oregon, to meet some of the people who have made it their vision to make this happen.

Food Works Farm is an offshoot of what began as a grassroots community garden project at the St. Johns Woods apartments, a North Portland public housing community, in 2001. The St. Johns Woods garden (now called Cathedral Garden Apartments and Village Gardens), came about through a strong community effort, and was the first place in the country to offer community garden space at a publicly owned subsidized housing location. During the time that Village Gardens became more established, youth from the community created a plot for growing salad greens for sale. Asdemand for the salad greens increased, the youth expanded the business onto donated land on Sauvie Island, granted by Metro, the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Portland region. Eventually thisgave rise to the current Food Works Farm and its youth employment program.

The Food Works Farm is a 2.5 acre certified organic farm, nestled between a public orchard and fields run by Sauvie Island Organics, a well-known, established organic CSA serving the Portland area. Food Works Farm produces food for its own CSA, grocery and restaurant accounts, and farmers markets, locatedmostly within the North Portland community. On the hot summer afternoon of my visit, youth were gathering at the Food Works’ shed after preparing a shared lunch at the farm kitchen. Settling on their plan for the afternoon, they divvied up totes used to load up the tomatoes and peppers they’d be harvesting to fill an order for a local grocery.

I met with Victor Montano, Food Works Farm Retail Coordinator, and Leslie Heimer, Food Works Program Supervisor, to talk about the history of Food Works Farm, the youth leadership program, and Victor’s role at the farm. Victor’s story starts out on a bus ride in North Portland. During their commute his mom and brothers were caught in a water balloon fight on the bus, and in the ruckus they met Leslie, thesupervisor at the farm. Leslie encouraged Victor and his brothers to apply to the summer youth leadership program and that summer he joined Food Works, working at the farm. From there, while in high school, he returned to join in the Academic Year Program, and then stayed on as the farm’s Retail Coordinator during the summer. Reflecting on his three years at the farm, Victor says:

“I’m a little biased, because my best friend works here, but [I like] working with others, andwith people who want to work together [with you]. Here you start in the summer program, so you build all the way through together. You spend quality time with [your friends/co-workers]. You’re building a friendship, coming here everyday. That’s what I like the best, working with friends.”

These days, Food Works receives far more applicants than they can take. Leslie says that in 2017 they received more than five times moreapplicants than they could enroll in the program.She no longer needs to recruit for applicants, since word of mouth is enough to spread the word. When asked if they’d ever consider growing the program, she says yes, but there are reasons to keep things small:

“We have a two-person adult staff at Food Works. We’ve been bigger before, and someday we’d love to grow, but we found that working with one crew is more effective. Everybody feels more a part of a team, and we are able to provide more access and attention to each person that way. We’re part of a larger organization called Village Gardens, so we can’t expand exponentially. We want to stay within our North Portland community. Those are our [long-term] relationships. They’re who we’re close to and who we answer to.”

Youth in the 8-week summer leadership program take public transportation to get to their workday. It is a commitment: a bus ride to Sauvie Island, then a walk up the road to the farm itself. Oregon summers are hot, and a work day is physically demanding. Lunchtime usually includes a break for a game and potentially a little spray from one of the garden hoses. While in the program, youth learn about planning, growing and selling produce, as well as developing leadership skills, like teamwork, accountability and conflict resolution . At the end of their workday, the youth gather together to review “positives and deltas” from the day: what went well, and what could use a little more practice. Positives for this day were the beautiful produce they’d picked, teamwork, and celebrating the birth of one of their friend’s babies. Deltas includedrecipe-tweaking on the baked onion rings for lunch, time-management with one less person on the crew and that it was challengingly hot that day.

CSA shares from the Food Works farm are delivered to pickup locations in the north Portland area, and some are offered at a discounted rate to people in recovery at a local addiction rehabilitation center. For many it is a unique opportunity to obtain thefresh, healthy food so necessary to our wellbeing. Not only can people make the choice to buy into the CSA and cook with the freshest of produce, Food Works also offers cooking demonstrations based on what is in the CSA box. In addition to the raw ingredients comes knife skills, proper storage, and food preparation, leading to more confidence and enjoyment in the kitchen.

In winter the Farm Supervisors and Academic Year youth team review the farm’s retail accounts and make plans for the upcoming spring and summer seasons. As Retail Coordinator at the farm, Victor heads up the accounting and outreach to community retailers:

“In general the way it works is thatwe do business planning during the school year, then we reach out to [local businesses] with a partnership proposal. My favorite is Village Market and New Columbia (part of Village Gardens). We’ve worked with New Seasons (a B-corp organic grocery chain) for many years, actuallysince we started. They’re very much in support of community programs. They have always bought produce from us. The heirloom tomatoes we’re harvesting right now are going to New Seasons. New Seasons also coordinates volunteer groups that come out to the farm.”

After we had finished our chat in the shade of the farm packing shed, Victor showed me around the Food Works fields, pointing out which crops were ready for harvest, which were finishing up (giant Walla-Walla onions were just harvested and curing), as well as crops going the long haul, like winter squash. He explained how the youth work with the farm supervisors to decide which crops to grow, when, and how much each season. Crop varieties are often chosen for their past performance: whether they providedproviding good yields, worked well in Portland’s climate, and of course, the taste test. Victor’s new picks this year,robust clumps of chives and lemongrass, were approved by group consensus during planning this past winter.

To me, this is one of the delights of CSA and small-scale farming: where people from the community are encouraged to come visit and participate, to get to know how their food is grown, and to know the people that produced it. The Food Works farm takes this even further, providing youth with the opportunity to give to their community, learn new ways of working together, job training, and commitment to a cause. It isn’t all rainbows, there are “positives and deltas”, farming takes a lot of work, and teamwork takes practice and patience. But we all depend on our food systems, and sharing food brings us a lot of basic joy.

Programs like The Food Works Farm thrive off community involvement with other small businesses working directly with the farm, community volunteers, and even some input like USDA grants. It’s the energy of community and our interdependence that encourages independence and growth, which then cycles around again. However you choose, the next time you’re browsing in the grocery aisle, farmers market, or opening your box of food, we invite you to pause and consider again the people who made it all possible.