New Haven Land Trust

Gardening and nature preservescommunity gardening: 45 community gardens across the city of New Haven, providing technical assistance and supplies. We work with neighborhood residents, tenant associations, block watches, social service agencies, schools, youth groups, and the elderly. By supporting community vegetable gardens, we help provide productive hubs of activity that benefit the community in many ways. The gardens clean up the soil, beautify the neighborhoods, and provide an avenue for healthy exercise, stress relief, enhanced emotional wellbeing, socializing, and skill development. It also becomes a family opportunity to work together and teach sustainable living while enjoying delicious home grown bounty. Many of the gardens are in resource-poor, low-income neighborhoods providing access to nutritious food that is free or low-cost, thus easing the strain on household budgets and helping with disease prevention.farm stand:weekly saturday farm stand at ferry street farm and free food distribution at fair Haven library that run from memorial day weekend through october. Fresh vegetables and herbs grown organically on our urban farm sites, as well as occasional offerings from local partners such as local honey, mushrooms, and fruit, this program helps make nutritious, subsidized and affordably-priced food available in the neighborhoods right where it's grown. Double snap and state department of agriculture's farmer's market nutrition program checks (distributed to qualifying low-income seniors and wic participants). Excess fresh produce is provided to community food pantries.nature preserves:since 1986 Gather New Haven has acquired approximately 80 acres of Land which is publicly accessible open space. These habitats include tidal wetlands, coastal upland forest and grassland, traprock ridge, riparian forest and fresh water wetlands. Our goals for these preserved lands are to maintain them in a natural state and to restore areas degraded by human impact to high quality biologically diverse environments for the benefit of New Haven residents and the New Haven environment. We also engage school groups in educational programs and volunteers in working on the preserves to build and maintain trails and practice stewardship for the environment and improvement of the local community.

Schooner day camp: schooner day camp provides Land and sea-based programming on New Haven's unique coastline through sailing lessons and shoreline habitat environmental education. Campers learn about the habitats and ecosystems of the long island sound, the water systems of the long island sound, pollution, and sustainability, all while having fun in the summer sun. Schooner camp takes place yearly between june - august at Gather's long wharf nature preserve. The program serves 80 campers per week, with a goal of 50% being scholarship eligible. Schooner summer camp brings together 350 youths between the ages of 6-16 from diverse backgrounds of New Haven to develop their leadership and life skills through sailing lessons, learning about the environment and building relationships through other camp activities. Growing entrepreneurs:the growing entrepreneurs program was started in 2016 to provide green jobs and professional skills training to low-income youth in New Haven. Students in the program learn about environmental issues that affect their communities, complete projects at community farms and gardens throughout the city, and learn business/entrepreneurial skills through small business ventures like selling produce and value-added products. Through their work and weekly experiential professional skills workshops, the students learn important skills that employers are asking for - creative problem-solving, working in teams, computer skills - and practice personal characteristics and behavioral skills that enhance their interactions, school and job performance, and career prospects such as adaptability, integrity, cooperation, and workplace discipline.

Wellness programfarm based wellness: the farm-based wellness program benefits low-income families of New Haven who face risks for chronic diet related disease. This program grew out of fair Haven community health care's diabetes prevention program. Participants are referred from healthcare providers and live within 200% of the federal poverty line. They participate in 16 consecutive weeks of hands-on education on the farm in this family based wellness program. The program continues on a monthly basis during the off-season. Participants receive baskets of fresh, organic farm produce on a weekly basis for the season, and attend one two-hour, on-farm educational session weekly. During those sessions, members participate in cooking classes and are given nutrition information about the nutrient-dense foods that they harvest that week, with culturally-relevant recipes for them to try at home. They are taught how to plant, harvest, and tend the vegetables, which gives them the added health benefit of being physically active. In addition, members participate in exercise classes and receive guided meditation practice to address all components of health and wellness. Graduates from the fbwp are encouraged to have their own vegetable plot in one of our active gardens.community health ambassadors:the community health ambassador (cha) program grew from the farm-based program (fbwp), with the intention to provide long term opportunities for leadership and involvement for women who have successfully graduated from the fbwp and wish to deepen their involvement with our work. We provide winter training in leadership, health advocacy, and peer to peer mentorship, providing the tools necessary for health ambassadors to work in various aspects to support the fbwp and current participants. Every winter, exemplary women farm-based wellness program graduates undergo training and participate in workshops to employ their leadership skills and learn behavior change methodologies to become the next generation of community change-makers. The following spring, they return to the farm-based wellness program as leaders and help the next generation of participants. They also provide program support and run additional exercise programming. This experience develops job skills and opportunities, as well as developing the communities in which the community health ambassadors live.