The mission of the Food Project is to grow a thoughtful and productive community of youth and adults from diverse backgrounds who work together to build a sustainable food system. They produce healthy food for residents of the city and suburbs and provide youth leadership opportunities. Most importantly, they strive to inspire and support others to create change in their own communities.

Since 1991, The Food Project has built a national model of engaging young people in personal and social change through sustainable agriculture. Each year, they work with over a hundred teens and thousands of volunteers to farm on 31 acres in rural Lincoln, MA and on several lots in urban Boston. They consider their hallmark to be their focus on identifying and transforming a new generation of leaders by placing teens in unusually responsible roles, with deeply meaningful work.

Each season, they grow nearly a quarter-million pounds of food without chemical pesticides, donating half to local shelters. They sell the remainder of their produce through Community Supported Agriculture crop “shares” and farmers' markets. They market their own Farm-Fresh Salsa, holiday pies, and other value added products. Locally, they also partner with urban gardeners to help them remediate their lead-contaminated soil and grow healthier food.

Nearly half of The Food Project’s work is as a resource center for organizations and individuals worldwide. They provide unique capacity building for organizations and educators who learn from The Food Project’s expertise through materials, youth training and professional development opportunities. Even projects completely unrelated to farming can draw on their methods for building inspired, diverse and productive youth communities. (Read more about the vision and philosophy of the Food Project.)

There are many ways you can get involved in The Food Project: by donating, volunteering, buying their food, working, signing up for their mailing list, and more. Please explore them all on the Food Project website!

“There is another way to live and think: it's called agrarianism. It is not so much a philosophy as a practice, an attitude, a loyalty and a passion—all based in close connection with the land. It results in a sound local economy in which producers and consumers are neighbors and in which nature herself becomes the standard for work and production.”

—Wendell Berry