Green Garden Bakery

Green Garden Bakery (GGB) is an innovative social enterprise program that was started in 2014 by and for youth in Heritage Park - Minneapolis. The youth wanted to capitalize on skills gained through USI's out of school time programming and create teen employment opportunities in the neighborhood. USI has supported the youth's vision and today GGB has developed a product line of healthy vegetable-based desserts using vegetables grown in their community garden that they sell online at farmer's markets and pop-up sales around the Twin Cities metro. The revenue earned through their sales is divided into thirds to reinvest into operations and payroll, and the final third is invested into a community need that the youth determine for themselves. This business model allowed the youth participants to invest over $40,000 into the Heritage Park community since 2014. In addition to the gardening, baking and selling components of the social enterprise, over 100 youth in grades K-12 are engaged in GGB. The oldest and most involved youth serve on a youth leadership team that oversees the operations of the social enterprise, additional youth 13+ serve on paid crews (sustainability, production, sales, marketing/design, garden spa, and community crew), middle school youth are provided work readiness training (including entrepreneurship club, a shark tank style program where youth develop new business ideas and pitch them to GGB youth leaders). Even elementary school youth are learning the basic skills of gardening, baking, entrepreneurship, environmental education, and marketing and design through afterschool and summer programming and mentored by GGB youth leaders.

The enduring impact of this program will be a self-sustaining social enterprise for youth and young adults in the Heritage Park community that will provide both workforce development and actual employment opportunities in the community and for the benefit of the community. This social enterprise will be a conduit for low income, youth of color to channel their creativity, motivation to succeed, and desire to rewrite society's given narrative into a new trajectory of possibility. In addition to the long-term economic impact for the individual participants and the neighborhood, the impact of this project on the local food system cannot be overlooked. GGB has perfected a product line of delicious tasting baked goods that kids through adults love all while consuming servings of healthy vegetables. Heritage Park is a predominantly food insecure neighborhood without a lot of access to affordable and healthy food options. Through GGB's gardening and cooking classes for kids and families, fresh produce is being introduced in a variety of ways and families are beginning to incorporate produce into their regular diets on a more consistent basis. The baked goods produced by GGB are also part of the larger North Minneapolis food system by enhancing the local market with healthy, affordable, and accessible baked goods.  

One of the most innovative elements of Green Garden Bakery is that the project has been driven by youth and their vision since the beginning. GGB is really the manifestation of youth getting together and figuring out a way to build the community they want for themselves and their families and neighbors. USI's role has been to support their vision and provide the framework for the youth to define what this program looks like, how it functions, and ultimately where it can go. The youth who initially came up with the business concept for GGB were intentional about always keeping sustainability for the program in mind. Most of this first youth cohort has younger siblings who they wanted to also engage, which became the impetus for GGB's mentoring and succession plan. USI has worked with the middle and high school youth to create an entire program model for kindergarten through high school so youth of all ages can be involved in some part of GGB. The final element that uniquely positions GGB to be successful for years to come and to truly impact the Heritage Park neighborhood on a grander scale tie back to the vision for this program coming from the community, and the creation of buy in that the community must ensure this vision moves forward. The youth participants from Kindergarten through high school, the first of the young adults who have recently graduated but still volunteer their time, the parents of the participants, the residents in the Heritage Park neighborhood and throughout the Twin Cities who enjoy GGB's baked desserts, and the dozens of community stakeholders who have supported the growth of this program are all bought into and aligned around the youth's vision that the GGB program can become a self-sustaining social enterprise for the community. When a community unites around a vision, it is a powerful and beautiful thing.