Company description

About the Organization: Launched in 2020, Cultivate Charlottesville aims to create a healthy and equitable future – personally, in community, and across systems and structures. We do this through our three core program areas of: City Schoolyard Gardens (CSG); Urban Agriculture Collective (UAC); and Food Justice Network (FJN). We believe that working together to grow gardens, share food and power, and advocate for just systems cultivates a healthy community for all.

Program Overview: City Schoolyard Garden engages youth in Charlottesville City Schools by collaborating with teachers to host classes for experiential learning in school growing spaces. The middle and high school gardens host their own urban farming classes that Cultivate supports at varying levels throughout the school year and summer. Urban Agriculture Collective works to address community food insecurity by involving local community members in a healthy food system. UAC currently operates 3 food production sites, which total over .5 acres. These sites produce roughly 10,000 of produce, which is distributed during weekly community market days in public and subsidized housing neighborhoods across Charlottesville.

Cultivate Vision: We envision our community engaged in driving an equitable food system, with access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate food for all.

Cultivate Beliefs: At Cultivate Charlottesville youth and community wellbeing is core to all we do. We believe people thrive with opportunities to come together to build equity, lead with self-determination, engage in growing food, discover through experience, and cultivate healthy living skills.

Cultivate aims to empower ourselves to create a healthy and equitable food system –personally, in community, and across systems and structures. We do this through City Schoolyard Garden experiential and leadership programs, Urban Agriculture Collective farming and community markets, and Food Justice Network advocacy and collaborations.

We believe that working together to grow gardens, share food and power, and advocate for just systems - cultivates a healthy community for all.

Cultivate Mission: Cultivate Charlottesville engages youth and community in building equitable, sustainable food systems through garden-based experiential learning, growing and sharing healthy food, amplifying community leaders, and advocating for food justice.

Cultivate Impact: Engaged Charlottesville youth and community in building a just, equitable, healthy, and bountiful food system.

Commitment to Racial Equity: At Cultivate Charlottesville, we recognize the role of racism in agricultural and educational systems in Charlottesville and the nation, both historically and today. Because we manage garden spaces and work with public school students and community members affected by racial inequities, we commit to building equity in all our work. We believe that fresh, affordable, accessible, healthy, culturally appropriate food is a human right.

Cultivate Strategies: We utilize the following strategies to drive food system change individually, in community, and in systems and structures at the intersection of food equity and schools, land use and ownership, food access markets, housing, and transportation.

1. Educate and engage youth in nature through garden-based experiences
2. Grow and share food to enhance access, connectivity, and health
3. Collaborate with partners and community
4. Dismantle racial inequities and actively build equity
5. Amplify community power, leadership and action
6. Mobilize with partners for policy change
7. Cultivate sustainability, equity, capacity, and leadership

Job description

Scope of Work: Cultivate Charlottesville is seeking applications for the Director of Agriculture position working primarily with both the City Schoolyard Garden and Urban Agriculture Collective programs. This position is responsible for planning, managing, and supporting a bountiful agriculture presence in growing spaces at Charlottesville City Schools and across the community. The Director of Agriculture is responsible for supporting the overall operations and logistics coordination of CSG’s school garden plots and UAC’s urban agriculture sites and community market days. This includes, but is not limited to seasonal crop planning, seedling propagation, coordination of volunteer work days, maintenance of irrigation lines, market day operations, and community engagement activities.

The Urban Agriculture Director of Agriculture’s core functions include:

1. Work as part of a team to grow fruits and vegetables and sustainably manage the land at Cultivate’s urban agriculture sites
2. Develop seasonal crop plans for fruits and vegetables that incorporate sustainable agricultural practices
3. Manage logistics for planting seed starts for production in our greenhouse and seed room
4. Supervise three Urban Agriculture Collective staff across multiple production sites
5. Manage project budgets including tracking expenses, purchasing supplies, and submitting vendor invoices in a timely manner
6. Track data such as harvest yields, volunteers, and distribution logs
7. Mentor and teach volunteers and interns, assessing their skill level and engaging them in all aspects of production and distribution appropriate with their aptitudes and abilities
8. Actively engage with CSG and UAC program partners including community outreach, coordinating volunteer workdays, working with seasonal food justice interns and community advocates.
9. Participate in community events to build relationships, increase equity, and enhance program goals
10. As part of a team, regularly engage in community outreach to ensure that community members are invited to participate and volunteer
11. Contribute as part of the Cultivate Charlottesville team with organizational activities such as community events, social media and community outreach, evaluation tracking, lesson design, etc.
12. Work to transform racial inequities in all aspects of your work with strategic and intentional action
13. Cultivate health and environmental sustainability in all program strategy and implementation
14. Complete other responsibilities as agreed upon with the Co-Executive Directors

Qualifications:

1. Demonstrated experience with sustainable urban agriculture growing practices
2. Staff supervision and management experience
3. Knowledge of the Charlottesville community and issues surrounding social inequities
4. Experience with hands-on seedling care, field preparation and tillage, equipment maintenance, direct seeding, transplanting, irrigation system use and maintenance, trellis construction and maintenance, cultivation and weed management, mulching, sowing and managing cover crops, monitoring plant health, crop residue management, harvesting and preparing crops for distribution, and other farm management activities.
5. Demonstrated knowledge of program planning and implementation
6. Ability to take initiative to learn new skills and step into job responsibilities
7. Familiarity with data entry and tracking with spreadsheets
8. Commitment to advancing food equity programs
9. Computer competence including MS Office Software (specifically Word and Excel), Google-based applications, and design and online tools.
10. Excellent oral and written communication skills

Ideal Candidate has:

1. At least 5 years experience in an urban agriculture-related field or a bachelor’s degree
2. 5-8 years of hands-on urban agriculture or equivalent experience
3. Excellent research, communication, and organization skills as well as the ability to manage multiple projects and priorities with flexibility and alignment to our mission
4. Experience working in diverse communities with a clear understanding of multi-cultural contexts and racial equity practices, with a specific preference for experience in
5. Charlottesville’s neighborhoods
6. Value the self-determination of community members to address issues around food equity
7. Transportation and a good driving record
8. Exceptional references

All Cultivate staff are responsible to uphold values and practices that support reaching our mission with integrity and which utilize our core organizational strategies including: engage and educate youth in nature through garden based experiences; grow and share food to enhance access, connectivity and health; collaborate with partners and community; dismantle racial inequities and actively build equity; amplify community power, leadership and action; mobilize with partners for policy change; cultivate sustainability, equity, capacity, and leadership.

Compensation: The Director of Agriculture is a full-time position with a salary range of $68,000 –$80,000. As with all full-time staff, the Director of Agriculture will receive a generous leave policy and robust benefits including health, dental, vision, life insurance, and an IRA savings match program.

Compensation

this position is: salaried, varies DOE, $68,000.00 - $80,000.00

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline