"Let's Move, Let's Grow"
greenhouse Goals
- Create new permanent green jobs
- Improve security of the local food network
- Establish two key components of the healthy kids programs to combat childhood obesity
- Provide a model for preservation and restoration of urban farm land and local food production
- Furnish hands-on training in a variety of agribusiness or green related jobs
- Provide job placement assistance in a livable wage job market
- Link grower programs, farm-to-market programs, farm to school programs, nutrition and community food programs
The Puget Sound Food Network
The Jessie Dyslin Ranch is a satellite of the Puget Sound Food Processing Facilities Project. GATEWAYS for Youth and Families (GATEWAYS) and Gateways Foundation for Youth and Families (Foundation) are partnering with the Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC) and its effort to establish a regional processing center in Skagit County that will be used by local farms and related businesses to manufacture value-added products for market. In addition, they are establishing satellites in Pierce, Whatcom, and Jefferson counties. The three satellite facilities will source raw agricultural commodities from producers to sort, prepare, and pack, as well as for value-added processing. This product will be prepared to the specifications/requirements of local and regional retailer, restaurant, and institutional buyers. The satellite facilities will include commercial kitchens for product development and small-scale processing services.
greenhouse: An Evidence Based Youth Development Program
greenhouse is a transitional age youth development program utilizing an evidenced-based curriculum produced by the greenhouse national task force. The work of the task force is coordinated primarily by Board members of the National Foster Parent Association, the Foster Parents Association of Washington State and supported by GATEWAYS, the Foundation and the Jesse Dyslin Ranch. Some of the kids who participate are foster kids and kids at risk.
WannaBgreen.biz
Wanna B Green is the agricultural program managed by the Foundation. This program works in conjunction with greenhouse and serves as a hard skills training center. It fully meets the criteria for a greenhouse hard skills training center, as it is centered exclusively on sustainable green technology, including agricultural and food production technologies, the use of alternative renewable energy resources, environmental conservation and sustainable community networks, healthy kids and nutrition education and hard job skills in emerging green job markets.
Job Training and Placement
SSTOPGAP (Social Service Tools Offering Personal Growth, Autonomy & Prosperity) is the job training and placement program managed jointly by the Foundation and GATEWAYS. In keeping with its history of teaching self-reliance and industry as a means to escape poverty, GATEWAYS for Youth & Families has adopted this social model as part of its family stabilization program. Underemployed populations need targeted recruitment and training to enter the job market. Providing training and employment opportunities for these populations, along with personal financial responsibility training has shown a remarkable and profound impact in family stabilization. Evidence in the youth development field supports the value of this approach for teens and young adults when it is coupled with a system of mentorship.
Childhood Obesity and Nutritional Education
We are beginning a program this year with the Tacoma Housing Authority Tenant Association. Better known as Salishan and the Hope VI Project, we are excited by the prospect of weekly supplying the residents of Salishan with fresh local "affordable" fruits, vegetables, berries and herbs. In return, the tenant association will encourage young people to be involved with the greenhouse program and will become a participant site for the nutritional education piece of that program.
