Our Partnerships

UAGC/Brandeis Partnership

www.uagreencareers.org/
For sixteen years, BMA has successfully collaborated with Louis D. Brandeis High School to provide a summer internship program for select students enrolled in the academic horticultural curriculum. This year, BMA continued the program with students from the Urban Assembly of Green Careers, one of the schools on the Brandeis Campus. Each spring, the school’s horticultural classes prepare and plant the end beds of the select malls in the 80’s along Broadway using the malls as an outdoor classroom. Then, for six weeks during the summer, the BMA Summer Youth Gardening Program employs two teams of four students and their supervisors. Two adult teachers and supervisors are hired. The students maintain and care for the beds in the early morning, then return to the school for classes in science and biology to enhance their scientific inquiry skills.

Vanessa Spiegel, master gardener and former coordinator of the program said, “This is the kind of program that needs to be replicated. So many children, particularly African American and Latino children get a bad reputation. The more they are seen working on the malls, the more people in the community change their attitudes about them. And for the children, it’s instant gratification for them when people come up and tell them they are doing a great job. Also the children are learning the value of being a part of making the community a better place to live.”

The Summer Gardening Program nurtures a new generation of young people who value and care for the natural resources right outside their doors.