GRUMBLETHORPE YOUTH
VOLUNTEERS & FARMSTAND

20 Years of Youth Service

The Grumblethorpe Youth Volunteers (GYVs) is a site-based youth service group program (for ages 12-18) available to Germantown youth and schools throughout Philadelphia. The program began in the summer of 2002, and over the years many young people have found a valued home, new friends and enriching experiences at Grumblethorpe that have enabled them to develop a wide range of ‘life’ skills through the unique multi-faceted learning experience. A significant number of former GYVs have gone on to further education and diverse employment avenues after high school.

During the school year, our GYV’s meet monthly on the second Saturday of the month from September through May. Participating youth are self-directed and -governed with adult mentorship in the pursuit of various learning, life enrichment, and community services opportunities. These have included things like Philadelphia Flower Show installations, food preservation, baking, bee-keeping, product and micro-enterprise development, garden clean ups at local gardens, hosting safe family-friendly events like a candy hunt in our garden for Halloween, and contributing to Grumblethorpe and Historic Germantown events.

At Grumblethorpe, youth not only learn about the history of Grumblethorpe and America’s founding, but also baking, arts and crafts, horticulture, and business group organizing, showing up, and maintaining responsibilities.

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Grumblethorpe Youth Farmstand

17 Years of Youth Engagement

The Grumblethorpe Youth Farmstand (GYF) offers a 3-month summer job to local teens (ages 14 & up) at our urban farm and market while serving the Germantown neighborhood with fresh, affordable, local produce. On Fridays and Saturdays in the summer, teens work with our farmer educator to grow and harvest a wide range of produce and learn to run a weekly Farmstand as paid staff. Many of the vegetables they sell are ones they have helped nurture, which, even in a short amount of time, can provide a sense of accomplishment that is not only visually noticeable, but physically tangible and socially felt.

The GYF summer job, often a capstone experience for GYVs and a first ever job for teens, provides on the job learning opportunities in the areas of agriculture, horticulture, food processing and safety, customer service, record keeping and accounting, accountability, communication, and many more hard and soft job skills, as youth take up different aspects of running Grumblethorpe Youth Farmstand.

Our GYV and GYF programs provide enriching experiences and important milestones in the lives of teens we work with while being our largest service to our community.

We rely on the support of our generous donors for our funding. We so appreciate your contributions so that we can continue to grow and expand these important programs for Germantown area youth.