Urban Roots

Our mission is to cultivate and empower youth through nature, healthy food, and community.

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Deep Roots, Inspiring Leaders: Get to know Urban Roots!

Youth interns are the heart of our work.

Urban Roots provides paid internships to youth on the East Side of Saint Paul. Youth interns develop leadership, entrepreneurial, and life skills through our Market Garden, Conservation, and Cook Fresh Programs. Each year, up to 85 youth interns, ages 14-24, participate in our progressive, tiered programming, connecting to one another and the world around them.

Conservation Conservation youth interns support and improve green spaces around the East Side and participate in the restoration of local parks (helping at 7 different parks, close to 250 acres of land) through removal of displaced plant species, native seed collection (from over 60 different species), and installation of native plants (over 1,000 plants planted each year). Interns learn hands-on skills through the installation and maintenance of rain and pollinator gardens and also engage in citizen science projects, such as insect surveys, water sampling, and forest inventories.

Market Garden Youth in the Market Garden program participate in small-scale crop production at our urban gardens while engaging with our hands-on curriculum. Interns practice valuable job and life skills through growing food—becoming stewards of their environment and communities. The produce we grow goes to 1) the Cook Fresh program to be made into shared meals for interns across all three programs, 2) farmers markets including Mill City Farmers Market, and 3) East Saint Paul community hunger relief efforts.

Cook Fresh The Cook Fresh Program engages and instructs youth interns and the greater community in the skills, knowledge, and confidence to make healthy, culturally relevant, delicious, and affordable meals. Youth interns learn food preparation skills, explore career pathways and post-secondary education, and engage in entrepreneurship, public speaking, hands-on lessons for the community, and social/environmental advocacy. Cook Fresh also provides space for youth interns to learn about food justice and equity while putting what they learned into practice on the East Side of Saint Paul.

Learn more about us in this video by the USDA: