Join a Professional Powerhouse of Solutions!

For more than 160 years, Children’s Aid has been working to ensure that no child’s potential is limited by the barriers of poverty. In recent years, we have sharpened our focus, strengthened infrastructure, and sought out continuous, data-supported improvement throughout our organization to maximize the impact we are having on the children and youth we serve.

Children’s Aid is a professional powerhouse of solutions for young people. We are teachers and social workers, coaches and health care providers, administrators and data analysts. We know what it takes to ensure children grow up strong and healthy, and ready to thrive in school and life: excellent education and health care, social-emotional support, and strong, stable families. It takes a team of extraordinary talent to produce the kind of impact to which we aspire. We are committed to recruiting and retaining staff who will embrace our goals and promote a results-oriented culture. Children's Aid is a place for talented individuals to engage in the battle on childhood poverty.

Position Summary: 

The Go!Gardens program enables children to experience plant-based foods from seed to table. Our production gardens follow the Farm to School model and will supply ingredients for scratch cooked institutional meals in Children’s Aid Early Childhood programs. Our teaching gardens are a space for inquiry-based, hands-on, and social-emotional learning. Under the supervision of the Director of Food and Nutrition Programs, the Garden Coordinator will manage the maintenance of and activities at our teaching and production gardens. The Coordinator will work directly with young people through educational and workforce development programs, using farming as a means of hands-on learning, political education, and job skills training.

The part-time Coordinator will work 14-28 hours/week and must be willing to travel to various school and garden sites throughout New York City (primarily in Washington Heights, Harlem and the Bronx). This is a hybrid position and currently some hours can be worked remotely.

This is a grant-funded one-year position with the possibility of extension.

The Go!Gardens program is part of the Children’s Aid’s larger Go!Healthy Programs, a healthy eating and wellness initiative for children from birth through adolescence and beyond, which includes hands-on cooking, nutrition education, gardening, food justice and a meal service program that is cooked from scratch and based on whole and plant foods. For more information, visit: www.childrensaidsociety.org/nutrition

Responsibilities: 

• Manage all aspects of year-round garden coordination, including build outs, planting and sowing, maintenance, and harvesting of production and teaching gardens.
• Serve as supervisor for Summer Youth Employment Program and Work, Learn Grow participants. Teach youth and guests to safely and competently execute garden maintenance tasks. Support the leadership and development of participants in their first experiences in the workplace.
• Steward internal partner relationships. Assist with facilitating and convening garden committee. Carry out prompt communication, set fair expectations in consideration of partner needs and abilities, and deliver on commitments. Collaborate with Go!Healthy staff around food education where it intersects with the teaching and production gardens. Be a liaison for work day events with families and visitors.
• Identify and comply with any applicable federal, state, and/or local regulations on edible gardening. Develop and implement garden food safety plan. Liaise closely with Go!Healthy Meals staff to plan and implement food storage and transportation plan and to develop and adjust crop plan and harvest schedule.
• Manage and ensure safety for students and parents who engage in gardening activities.
• Strategically plan the ongoing growth of the gardens’ features and attributes.  Stay current on applicable growing practices, food education and farm to school efforts. Maintain and grow garden infrastructure and inventory. Store and upkeep supplies and equipment. Prepare line item budgets and purchase new equipment as needed.
• Perform monitoring and evaluation functions, according to evaluation plan, such as tracking yield and numbers of clients served and reconciling spending. Support with preparing materials for funder reports and proposals.
• Perform administrative functions as needed, including conducting accounting and reimbursement paperwork for spending.
• Comply with all privacy laws including HIPAA, FERPA, etc.
• Assist Go!Healthy team where necessary in implementing other programs.

Qualifications: 

• A dynamic gardener with significant gardening, farming, and/or agriculture experience is a must. Experience farming for production strongly preferred. Ability to execute modest infrastructure and build out projects.
• Ability to create and carry out crop plans for both teaching and production gardens in an urban setting. Ability to implement organic or sustainable growing practices. An interest in facing the challenges and capitalizing on opportunities presented by each garden site. Knowledge of the benefits and planting of native and pollinator plants and of regenerative agriculture.

• 2-4 years’ experience in positive youth development, workforce development, or related area. Strong teaching skills. Proven ability to connect with young people from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and lived experiences.
• Passionate about cultivating love of land, the outdoors, and food among young people. Ability to motivate young people to work hard in the garden.
• A demonstrated knowledge and commitment to apply critical racial, gender and environmental justice lenses to farming, including a decolonizing farming framework.
• Highly organized and self-motivated.
• Team player who values the collective effort required to plan and upkeep gardens across the seasons.
• Bilingual or multilingual fluency in languages spoken in our communities is a plus.