Farm Discovery at Live Earth, formerly Live Earth Farm Discovery Program, offers its eighth summer camp season starting June 12, 2017—just one of the many ways they grow healthy relationships through food, farming and nature.

This season, Farm Discovery will host two junior staff positions at its summer day camps. We are now accepting applications for these positions, email Hayley at education@farmdiscovery.org for more information.

Applicants must be former Farm Discovery LIT’s or graduates of the Food What?! Program. The junior staff positions are a paid.

At Farm Discovery summer camps, Junior Staff and LIT’s have the opportunity to grow real food, outside, with their own hands — alongside younger campers who thrive from their support. They take raw ingredients from the fields to the kitchen, where they facilitate food preparation and preservation skills. Junior Staff hone healthy habits to share with their families and the skills to maintain such habits after camp is done.

During their time as Junior Staff and LIT’s teens learn leadership and job skills in a supportive environment where they are challenged to take responsibility. In working with younger campers, the teens go back to school in the fall better prepared socially and academically, with work experience, greater awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth, and the skills to make healthy food choices.

Since their inception in 2009, Farm Discovery Farm Camps have included an LIT Program. The teens volunteer for their first year, gaining leadership and job skills. To honor the skills LITs gain each year and the increased responsibilities they hold, Farm Discovery offers a weekly stipend that increases, based on a performance evaluation each week. Stipends make participating in the LIT program possible for economically disadvantaged youth. Each year LIT’s become more skilled as outdoor educators, farmers, cooks, naturalists, leaders, and employees. In the Junior Staff position, youth further develop these skills while taking on added responsibility for leading and completing camp projects and mentoring less experienced LIT’s.

Spots are still available for Farm Discovery’s eighth summer camp season. Many activities are planned; all take place on the working farm and incorporate materials from 150 acres of organic fruits and vegetables. Past sessions have included making cheese, felting with wool, making take-home pickles and harvesting ingredients to assemble, then eat, delicious, farm-fresh salads. Campers also have opportunities to interact with our animals—including chickens and Bella, our milking cow—and even do animal chores like milking goats.

Also, Farm Discovery is offering many scholarships for kids in the community to attend camp and provide stipends for LITs so that everyone, including those who are financially challenged, can have these transformative and empowering experiences. For more information visit http://farmdiscovery.org/farm-camps/.

If you think you or someone you know might be interested in being a junior staff member at Farm Discovery, email Hayley at education@farmdiscovery.org to receive an application. 

Summer 2017 sessions
June 12-16, Farm to Table Camp – 9am-3pm – optional overnight on Thursday
June 19-23, Art on the Farm – 9am-3pm – optional overnight on Thursday
June 26-30, Sprouts Camp – 9am-noon – with OR without parent
July 10-14, Farm to Table Camp – 9am-3pm – optional overnight on Thursday
July 17-21, Art on the Farm Camp – 9am-3pm – optional overnight on Thursday
July 24-28, New Teen Camp; Fields and Meals-9am-4pm

Farm Discovery at Live Earth is a nonprofit organization building skills for the regeneration of our food, farming, social and natural systems. They empower youth and families, through enhanced awareness and skill building, to take action and to build and sustain healthy systems. Their home, Live Earth Farm, is a 150-acre patchwork of working farm, riparian corridor, oak and redwood forest in the Pajaro Valley of Santa Cruz County, California. Volunteers are needed in a number of different capacities, including a brand-new docent program; people can receive training this August.