Lennox Island farmer’s market run entirely by youth to launch in August

A brand new farmer’s market run solely by Indigenous youth is slated to open in Lennox Island, P.E.I., later this summer season.

The market would be the fruits of a six-week pilot program meant to show Indigenous youth entrepreneurial and gardening expertise. 

The pilot is the results of a partnership between the Ulnooweg Training Centre, a corporation that delivers instructional packages for Indigenous communities, and the Lennox Island Greenhouse.

“The youth have class time the place they’re studying about issues like monetary literacy,” stated Kayla Cruikshank, the market’s coordinator.

“They get to work within the backyard and plant their very own backyard plots and finally, you already know, host the youth farmer’s market.”

Individuals will help a sequence of workshops with neighborhood members who’re enterprise homeowners, the place they may study entrepreneurial expertise, good dietary habits and about points equivalent to meals safety.

The venture additionally has a cultural element, with some workshops devoted to the Mi’kmaw worldview, bead-making, and basket-weaving.

“It is simply to get them linked with … enterprise and simply being extra concerned in neighborhood and taking a look at completely different ventures,” stated Jocelyn Marshall, Ulnooweg’s Indigenous tradition and neighborhood engagement officer.

“We hope to finally empower the neighborhood, to take this and champion it.”

The market is ready to open in August. Organizers will probably be travelling to Summerside to attract some inspiration from that metropolis’s farmer’s market.

“In my neighborhood, I discover the farmer’s market is nearly like the center. You already know, all people goes and also you see mates, you see household, you construct neighborhood, you construct native companies,” stated Daybreak Matheson, a venture coordinator on the centre.

“It is also a gathering place, a social place. And I feel this one in Lennox Island, I would like to see it’s a spot for the neighborhood to assemble, you already know? Like the center of the neighborhood.”

This system remains to be on the lookout for members who’re Indigenous youth ages 12 and older.

“All the things else on this planet’s future, it depends on our youth that we now have at this time,” Matheson stated. “So we would as effectively simply create the house, the protected house for them to have the ability to develop and be artistic and achieve success.”