Urban Training Farm
In 2015, StarkFresh took over an under-utilized urban city park in a “forgotten” part of the city that had a reputation of being less than desirable.
By the following year, with the help of volunteers and countless hours of work, we had transformed the park into the StarkFresh Training Farm.
Located at 613 Rowland Avenue NE in Canton, OH, the park is now a vibrant community space where food is grown on a commercial production scale.
It serves as a training facility for teaching basic job skills and how to grow plants from seed all the way to harvest, but that wasn’t the plan from the beginning.
How ICAN Helped Create Something Even Better
Originally conceived as a site where StarkFresh would grow food only for our Mobile Grocery Market, the farm’s full potential began to be realized when we partnered with ICAN Housing to build out the farm.
ICAN Housing serves people experiencing homelessness, many with a history of mental illness. Through their supported employment program, participants gain job readiness skills and receive financial education to prepare them to seek and retain traditional employment.
The Urban Training Farm pilot program gave ICAN participants exposure to real-world employment expectations as they enjoyed the regenerative and therapeutic qualities of working by hand with soil.
We underestimated how life-altering it would be to give people a way to discover their own self-worth: the impact of that pilot program changed our entire focus on how this farm would be utilized.
Multi-faceted Employment & Educational Initiatives
The Urban Training Farm has become a center for a variety of employment opportunities, catering to those who are struggling with poverty and trauma and looking for a way to reenter society.
Some produce is grown for some of our community garden partners, such as Walsh University and First Tee of Canton, where healthy eating and food insecurity issues are being addressed through educational and hands-on programming within smaller groups.
In addition to providing food access through onsite growing and affordable food for retail sales, the farm also educates the general public.
Educational initiatives at the Urban Training Farm include scheduled workdays, school field trips, programmed events about hunger and poverty, and traditional farming workshops.
If someone happens to walk by when we are onsite, we always extend an offer to teach them something.