The Kitchen as Classroom: How Food Helps Students Learn Leadership

PeerForward, a youth leadership development organization, taps into the power of peer networks to increase the number of students in low-income schools applying to college and submitting FAFSA forms. Working with teachers, elected students develop their own custom action plans to achieve PeerForward's common goals. For instance, at some schools, student leaders required a completed FAFSA for admission to a dance.

Food hub projects are gaining momentum in Hawaii as a means to connect farmers with customers. The projects go against the narrative that produce should be sold to big-box supermarkets, and instead focuses on "allowing farmers to concentrate on farming and creating a seamless ordering system so consumers can order food online for delivery or availability at central pickup points."

The Life Do Grow Farm in Philadelphia, run by the nonprofit Urban Creators, is a two-acre plot that yields food needed to feed the community who might not be able to make ends meet. Since June, the farm has distributed 65,000 pounds of produce, along with free children’s meals. But the farm is also a community gathering space for artists and entrepreneurs. While the land’s lease runs out in 2022, the nonprofit hopes to own it and highlight it as a “reimagination of city land, a radical collaboration in the service of empowering Black and brown communities in North Central Philly,” said the farm manager.

In Australia, a universal survey in several secondary schools helps to identify students who are at risk of becoming homeless and connects them with wraparound services. The prevention-based model may soon be piloted in King County, Washington.

A nonprofit in Seattle is identifying youth between the ages of 16 to 24 who are out of school and work and reconnecting them with the public education system. Two-thirds of students enrolled in the program have gone on to pursue college.

A unique boarding school in Thailand has inspired close to 200 more of its kind. At Mechai Bamboo School, students benefit from a combination of traditional classroom instruction and hands-on activities, including starting their own small businesses. Targeted at some of the most disadvantaged students in Buriram Province, the lessons in economic development encourage students to give back to their home communities instead of migrating.

Two Detroit-based entrepreneurs are determined to help minority youth become stakeholders in community real estate development. Targeting communities that experience gentrification, Project Destined empowers young students with knowledge about the real estate profession, information that is often passed down through families instead of classroom lessons. "It's not a talent gap, it's an information gap," one of the founders emphasizes.

Community leaders are working together to address the issue of food insecurity in Mansfield, caused not just by lack of access to grocery stores and fresh food sources, but also often by unemployment, high housing costs, low wages, poverty, and health care costs. The North End Local Foods Initiative is installing food gardens in these communities, creating access to fresh produce, to educational opportunities, recreational activity and more.

Educate!, a social enterprise started in Uganda, helps students start businesses while they are still in school - students are "creating jobs instead of looking for them." The organization trains teachers and youth mentors, who then work with the students in their schools to get businesses off the ground. A randomized trial conducted in 2014 found that graduates of the program earned double the income of their peers.

A Kenyan government initiative is helping a growing community of residents to tackle food insecurity in one of the largest slum areas in Africa, championing an unusual form of urban farming: sack gardens.