(soft music) - What makes a BU Farm special?

The fact that we're learning together, the fact that we put so much focus around culture and community so that people know this is a gathering space.

And then guess what?

The backdrop is food.

(upbeat music) (birds chirping) (wind howling) (steps plodding) - The St. Pete Youth Farm is a community garden and there are some people that live in this neighborhood who has no means of transportation.

The way I chose to give back is to deliver what St. Pete Youth Farm has to offer.

(soft music) (steps plodding) - I love it.

- Some fresh greens for you today.

- Oh.

- There you go.

- Thank you so much.

- That's the joy.

That's what I feel when you hear someone say thank you, and they clapping and that's the joy.

(upbeat music) - In 2017, a large chain grocery store closed 10 blocks from where we're sitting right now today at St. Pete Youth Farm, and the community was left with a void of having access to nutritious food, fruits and vegetables.

- Especially our elderly community.

They didn't have the means to eat healthy because it wasn't available in this area.

(upbeat music) - We come from an agrarian culture, I like to talk the history about how it wasn't until the industrial revolution that we started to mechanize and mass produce, we've really taken food and turned it into a commodity to be bought and sold.

When people are looking to feed themselves, they find it in grocery stores and supermarkets and places, 'cause we don't grow our own food as individuals anymore, and so we become very dependent upon this sort of industrial food complex.

But if it's not there, then what do you do?

You have to now find food in maybe, a restaurant, fast food place.

These foods are generally overprocessed and can be really difficult for people's health.

- The outcome was this idea that young people could actually lead in the solution.

St. Pete Youth Farm was launched in summer of 2019, is a youth development program for teens.

We quickly realized that that's what we're here to do, is to develop the future, for our city and areas beyond us.

- The youth began to come and pour into the community and the St. Pete Youth Farm opened up their doors and invited the community to come and get involved and say, "Hey, we have food here for you."

- They're learning how to cook, they're learning how to grow food.

They're learning everything from hydroponics, aquaponics.

They find value in being able to provide for the community.

It feels enriching for them along with the programming that we offer.

Job readiness and job keeping skills is also something that we prioritize here at St. Pete Youth Farm.

For young leaders, but character development is what we believe must come before leadership.

(shovel clanging) - So look at that and smelling that?

Over here, we're making the additional seasoning for that.

- Every Monday, there's pretty much something different.

(soft music) There's poetry, there's arts, there's crafts, there's painting.

(upbeat music) - We don't really pay much attention to the youth anymore, and so I think these new generations are feeling somewhat neglected and isolated and so having a youth farm, to me is one of those sort of recreational environments that we need to bring back.

- Hello everyone.

Welcome to the greenhouse.

- Not only have I learned how to grow and give back to the community, I also, it has helped me with my mental health.

On Mondays, we do Mental Health Mondays they not only help me with my mental health, but they give me like a voice in my community to speak out about things that I wouldn't speak with other people.

(upbeat music) - If we talked about the high rate of mental illness with youth, specifically in our demographic, then we have to talk about the benefits of being outside, working with your hands, the fresh air and everything that we do is conducive to that.

We have so much that's growing.

We've given away over 500 mini-gardens.

Whatever we're growing, we want you to have it at no cost because we can't actually solve the issue of access without ensuring that the community has direct access to food when they need it, where they need it.

(upbeat music) - Ms. Julia, collard greens.

Oh, thank you.

We've done our deliveries and it just feels good.

I know that I've helped families today and they've helped me.

This is something that my son would want me to do and something that I feel good.

I really do.

(soft music) - It makes me a little emotional to think about the fact that we lost one of our first young people.

(soft music) - In 2022, my son, Bryce Lewis, was a passenger in the backseat and he was killed in a tragic car accident.

(soft music) - I never forget my purpose of why I do what I do for the St. Pete Youth Farm, because if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't know anything about the St. Pete Youth Farm.

He told me what he wanted to do.

He was a very good kid.

And I just always want to tell his story.

He was one of the first generations for the St. Pete Youth Farm.

He worked from 2019 all the way to 2022.

My son's spirit lived right in the St. Pete Youth Farm, right over by the banana trees, right over by the greenhouse.

(soft music) I don't even like to go out to the graveyard anymore.

I'd rather come to the St. Pete Youth Farm.

I find peace, I find healing.

I never would've thought that after losing my son, I would come and do the same thing that he has been doing years prior to his death.

The journey has been peaceful.

I'm healing and I know that my son's legacy is being carried out.

(soft music) When Bryce met Carla in 2019, he immediately took to her and she became our village mom.

Carla is a person who is not only involved some of the time, but all the time.

I appreciate her being so involved in my son's life, and she does that for all the kids, and that's what this community needs.

They need a village mom.

(group laughing) - That makes me really emotional to think that a young person who is not my biological child thinks of me as raising them or the parents saying, I see you as a second mom to my child.

This is what allows me the latitude to provide the level of love and support that's needed for our young people in this community.

(upbeat music) - Love, I want you.

- [Group] Love, love, love give me.

- I think the youth farm benefits the city by love.

We all, there's no strangers here.

Everybody's here for love.

There's no strangers or nothing.

It's like family for real.

(upbeat music) - Oftentimes we talk about the impact of one person, but everywhere you look around the farm, you see the impact of many.

It's extremely meaningful as this is and will be a staple in this community.

I couldn't imagine spending my days, my time any other way than how we're spending it now.

Improving the lives of others and making food accessible here in St. Petersburg, Florida.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Support for Greater St. Petersburg is provided by Curtis Anderson.