Summer Farm Crew 2013

"It doesn't matter which end of the seed is down, or whether its 1/8 inch shallower than instructed. It'll come up. It almost always does. The only seed that won't come up is the one you fail to plant." This quote by Peter Fossell represents MEVO's beliefs in the power of action. We need to take action today, no matter how small, to impact the world we want to live in. If you don't do something, no one else will. MEVO's Summer Farm Crew builds, maintains, grows, and harvests organic community gardens throughout the suburbs of Northern New Jersey. We use these gardens as educational tools to engage Northern New Jersey communities in learning about growing their own food, sustainable farming practices, and the many benefits of a local food system. We build these gardens on unused space throughout the suburbs such as vacant lots, grass lawns, and parking lots, turning unproductive polluting space into productive food space. All the food we grow is donated to local hunger organizations, and our volunteers work on a daily basis with partner not-for-profits that bring their own volunteers with disabilities and developmental delays to our farms. As a member of our Farm Crew, our goal is to empower and teach you how to build a garden from start to finish, how to manage multiple gardens, how to find funding and donations to support your garden, and how to teach people about sustainable agriculture. We want you to leave our internship as a real farmer or, at the very least, an experienced gardener. Over the summer you will spend your days outdoors and indoors building organic farms, installing compost systems, caring for our chickens and bees, teaching educational workshops on gardening to children and adults, working with different volunteer groups that come to our farms, volunteering at our partner farms for educational workshops on farming, and so much more! You and your farm crew members will be in charge of maintaining all of our gardens throughout Northern, New Jersey. The internship is 75% outdoors and 25% indoors; some of your indoors work will consist of grant applications for farm funding, meeting with local community members on garden locations and educational curriculum development, as well as research on farming practices.

The Summer Farm Crew begins in May and ends at the end of August. The crew works three days a week from 9:00am to 5:00pm, sometimes a little more or less. If you like our crew but can't commit three days a week, contact us anyway, as we are open to any ideas you might have on a custom schedule or time commitment. We also offer a Farm Maintainer internship on a one to two day a week basis.

Responsibilities

Solution finding and problem solving: As an environmental not-for-profit organization lead entirely by high school and college students from a variety of backgrounds, none of us are "professional" farmers. We are passionate environmental people that want to make a difference in the world. With that said, there will be times when you're Crew Leader or Supervisor is unavailable or doesn't know the answer to a problem. That means you will have to research and find the solution to problems and think on your feet, for example, researching what bug is eating your vegetables or delegating work to a volunteer group that showed up on the wrong day.

Teaching: The Farm Crew, each summer, serves as our primary team of educational volunteers that operate our educational summer camps in conjunction without our partner not-for-profit, "Pony Power Therapies, Inc." Farm Crew members teach children from shelters, children in hospice, people with disabilities, and other groups about organic gardening and local food. As a Farm Crew Member, you will be one of the primary teachers of these weekly summer camps and will be leading the educational workshops along with your crew members.

Physical volunteering and getting dirty: Almost every day will be spent outdoors volunteering on farm projects. You will build rain water collection systems, plan out gardens, spread mulch, and clear invasive plants. In addition, you will work with community members on "dirty" projects like manure composting and "heavy" projects like moving stones to build raised beds. This job is not for the faint of heart!

Requirements

Passionate, friendly, and independent thinkers: These characteristics help to make a difference in the world as well as enhance your ability to work with different types of communities and people. You may feel like you have some but not all of these characteristics and that is fine, but you need to express to us why you are the fit for the job. As a crew member, we need you to be able to work together with your crew to achieve awesome garden projects. These characteristics, we feel, are needed for work with crew members and to achieve a lot.

Mode of transportation: MEVO operates several gardens throughout Northern New Jersey, which means during the internship we will travel to all of these gardens throughout the week. As a Crew Member, you need a mode of transportation. We carpool for most days so we never need as many cars as crew members, but we still need you to be able to get to our meeting location in the morning. At a minimum someone must be willing to drop you off at our office.

Punctuality and Reliability: MEVO is lead by unpaid high school and college students and has volunteers ranging from students to adults. Because we are unpaid, the internship is designed to be a part-time position three days a week allowing you to have a part-time job as well as an internship. Regardless, you are required to be on time and ready all three days, each week. This is not always a 9am to 5pm job. Some days you will work less and some days you will work more. While we understand that sometimes you cannot be present due to extenuating circumstances, we rely very greatly on your presence and seek individuals who are willing to be punctual and reliable.

Taking your work home with you: We are a local community not-for-profit organization, which means we are always connected and involved with any community we work with. That means that you have to take your work home with you, such as the e-mails you send and phone calls you make. This job does not just stay at the farm. People will e-mail and call you back at all hours of the day all days a week, no matter if you are at the farm or not. You need to be willing to respond to these people and work on MEVO projects even when you are not in the office. A lot of our work is time sensitive and for the whole summer, you will be connected with your internship and your crewmembers.