Monday, January 11, 2010

Announcing GreenLeaf's 2010 Spring Internship Program

GreenLeaf is proud to announce our 2010 Spring Internship Program!




We are recruiting 8 students from the Denver Venture School to participate in this exciting and brand-new program. Interns will:

  • Attend and participate in weekly meetings, including some Saturday workshops.
  • Participate in developing GreenLeaf as a new non-profit organization.
  • Plan GreenLeaf's farming season for 2010 including crop planning and marketing.
  • Develop GreenLeaf's 2010 summer program including curriculum, games, and activities.
  • Interns will earn a $tipend for full participation. There is also a chance that interns may transition to paid employment with GreenLeaf for summer 2010 or after.


The Denver Venture School (DVS) is a new, innovative charter school engaging students in a project-based curriculum focusing on entrepreneurship and business. GreenLeaf's Spring 2010 internship program is open ONLY to DVS students: since we are a startup, we are particularly excited to have the opportunity to engage the talent, knowledge, and skills of DVS students to build our organization collaboratively.



DVS students will have a unique and powerful influence on how GreenLeaf starts and develops, with real responsibility and decision-making power. Students can get involved in GreenLeaf from the beginning and will have significant influence on how we do what we do.

We are encouraging students to apply if they:

  • Like to garden or do work outside
  • Are interested in starting and developing an organization
  • Want a fun and challenging intern experience
  • Can commit to participating fully and doing their best
  • Are interested in food, social justice, or sustainability


We’ll be spending some time inside but more and more time outside as the weather gets warmer. Together we will try new things, learn new things and do some hard things: it’s guaranteed to be an adventure. We will play a lot of games and everything we do will be participatory and hands-on.



Students who are interested in applying should know:

  • This is a job: we will be colleagues
  • You will have real responsibilities and support to fulfill them
  • We value and expect collaboration, communication, and accountability


These are the major learning goals we will achieve as part of the internship:

· Nonprofit basics

o What is a nonprofit organization?

o Why is GreenLeaf a nonprofit, and how does it operate?

o What are the different roles within a nonprofit?

· The Business of Farming

o The Food System

o Ecology

o Farm Planning

§ Crop Planning

§ Budgeting

§ Seed starting and planting

· Planning for GreenLeaf's Summer Program 2010

o Logistics

o Content



These are the foundational ideas that GreenLeaf and the internship program are based on:

o Positioning young people to assume leadership in the organization and expand their understanding of quality of life issues affecting them, through:

§ Supporting and challenging youth to do their best and be their best selves

§ Sharing ownership of the learning process with youth

§ Creating a safe and engaging group environment to foster collaboration, exploration, risk-taking, problem solving, and self-management

§ Giving students real responsibilities that impact individual and group achievement

o Situating learning in its natural context. We recognize that learning occurs "at the intersection of community, shared practice, identity, and meaning."[1]

o Enabling youth to act in intentional and strategic ways to ensure current and ongoing quality of life for themselves and their community

o Creating and nurturing vital community networking and partnerships that support the organization and its participants in the long term

o Intentionally building in a process for ongoing planning and evaluation



Thanks to The Food Project for the lovely picture!



[1] Morrell, E. (2005). Becoming Critical Researchers: Literacy and empowerment for urban youth. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc.

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