VEJ launches Youth Club this October

Week one of VEJ Youth Club included pizza-making! Working together to cook made eating together even more fun. 

Voices for Earth Justice Youth Club, a once a week after-school program for youth interested in exploring the topics of food and ecology in a garden space, began on October 2. VEJ Youth Club is open to young people ages 4 to 12 who want to learn about ecology, while getting help with schoolwork and practicing leadership skills.

To kick off the program, the first activity included goal setting and personal reflection with an “I am” project. The young people selected character adjectives to describe themselves, and arranged and glued the adjective slips onto a construction paper sun.

Other activities of the first week included making pizza, painting symmetrical butterflies & beetles, and playing a cooperative group game. Since then, VEJ Youth Club have completed nature art projects, a fall leaf chromatography experiment,  a vermiculture science experiment, and cooking lessons.

At every VEJ Youth Club meeting, the youth cook a new recipe. They prep vegetables, season roasted squashes, and learn different cooking techniques. To complete every cooking lesson, we eat together in a group meal. Working on cooperative and collaborative behaviors, sharing meals encourages VEJ Youth Club members to listen, share, and create together.

In the future, VEJ Youth Club meetings will include several supported activities, including rewarded reading goal setting, seasonal vocabulary words, garden-centered educational activities, and upcycled crafting.

Thus far, Voices for Earth Justice Youth Club has eight registered children, ranging in ages 4 to 11-years-old. There is still room for three to five more children in our weekly after-school program.

We will continue cooking, eating, creating, and exploring at Hope House and Gardens with VEJ Youth Club through May. If interested in registering your child in the program, you can sign up by filling out this form.