Nov 20, 2016

School Program Helps Grow Young Professionals By Tim Hodson

Last week, Shelby County High School near Birmingham, Alabama, opened the doors to a new greenhouse that will not only grow herbs and vegetables for sale to local businesses, but it is also designed to produce new growers too.

The school built the new greenhouse as part of its Herbs Offering Personal Enrichment (HOPE) project.

The HOPE project provides schools with the opportunity to incorporate gardening and agriculture into their learning curriculums for special education students.

The new greenhouse was built by students in the school’s ag science program.

The greenhouse was needed so the program could continue operating year round, instead of seasonally.

HOPE is an outreach program that originally began as a partnership between the school system and local restaurateur, Keith Richards, who owns Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafes, which has seven locations in the Birmingham area.

The HOPE partnership allows special needs students to learn all aspects of the herb business as well as other skills that will transfer to other jobs.  According to Taziki’s website, “The goal [of the program] is to empower and inspire special needs students by hiring and teaching them to grow, harvest and sell fresh herbs used at many of our locations.”

Students in the school’s ag science programs as well as special needs student will manage the new greenhouse. Ag science students will be responsible for planting the crops and overall greenhouse operations, and the special education students will oversee the crops on a daily basis. Currently, the greenhouse will produce rosemary, cilantro, oregano, basil and parsley. Other crops are expected to be added in the future.

The students who work in the greenhouse get paid from the sales of the herbs and a portion of the profits is also donated to the schools agriculture science program.

And it looks like the program is growing. Taziki’s recently announced there are plans to expand the HOPE project to the Nashville area.

Programs like this one are a great way to introduce a wide variety of students into the career opportunities our industry has to offer. Is anything like this taking place in your area?

Drop me a line at thodson@greatamericanpublish.com and let me know.

— Tim