Sunset Park teens cultivate skills on a rooftop farm

On Aug. 18, interns placed with City Growers through New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program hosted a showcase at Brooklyn Grange. Friends, family members and participants in the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture Harvest Share program attended the event.

Standing beside a patch of native flowers, youth tour guide Jeffery Lin posed a question to the crowd:

“Are honeybees native to North America?”

Amid a chorus of murmurs, the crowd hesitated.

“The answer is no. And here are some bees that are native to North America,” Lin continued, pulling a pamphlet from his bag. “We have bumblebees, carpenter bees, sweat bees and mason bees.”

“Why are they called sweat bees?” someone asked.

“Because they are attracted to sweat,” Lin shouted.

This summer, interns at City Growers honed their farming skills while exploring environmental justice and urban ecosystems at the Sunset Park rooftop farm.

Sam Luria, a local resident, distributed zines at one of two tables during the showcase. Having previously worked on organic farms upstate, he was excited to find a farming position close to home.

“I’ve been really interested in farming for the past couple of years. I’ve worked at organic farms upstate where I was a farm hand,” Luria said. “But I couldn’t stay there the whole summer, so I was trying to find a job that would fit that niche. It’s really awesome that SYEP allowed me to get to do this. A spot like this in the city is a really big deal for me. If I want to in the future, it would be really cool to have a farming job in the city.”

Aside from farming, Luria created a zine about mullein, a plant recognizable by its large, woolly leaves, tall stalk of yellow flowers and varied chemical compounds.

“I’d heard a lot about it, but I had never taken the time to actually learn about it. Once I started learning about its particularities, I was pretty interested in the chemistry,” Luria said.

At the same table, Abigail Escamilla said she found City Growers through an SYEP job fair.

“I think it’d be nice to sort of see what kind of environment they have up here, especially because it’s a rooftop garden that you don’t really hear about often, or I didn’t even know it existed,” Escamilla said.

Though she had never farmed before, Escamilla was already familiar with outdoor nature work from her time at Green-Wood Cemetery.

“It is the first time I’ve done farming. We learned how to harvest, how to weed, how to plant, learning what is good and how to take care of them,” she said.

Program Manager Mel Marsh noted that this is the first youth employment program City Growers has hosted at the Sunset Park farm. The Summer Youth Employment Program is a city-sponsored initiative that offers paid work experience to young people ages 14 to 24.

During the six-week program, 13 interns participated in farming activities and learned from guest speakers on topics ranging from agriculture to workers’ rights.

Marsh said this year’s cohort is older than the groups they typically work with.

“The most surprising moment is realizing they are like my peers in a way. It was pleasantly surprising to see how capable they are,” Marsh said. “These are like real adults and we’re like co-workers, and I learned so much from them as well.”

Marsh hopes the program can become further embedded in the community moving forward.

“The longer-term visions are to get into the community and help grow a pollinator garden or build a community fridge or do something that is more rooted in the community,” Marsh said.