The GrowHaus Partners with the 24th National Service-Learning Conference

One of the supporters of the National Service-Learning Conference is The GrowHaus, which is a nonprofit indoor farm, marketplace, and education center in Denver’s Elyria-Swansea neighborhood. The goal of this organization is to provide healthy, affordable food for the surrounding community, and raise awareness about food justice and sustainability. That part of Denver is unfortunately known as a food desert, which means that the people who live in that area don’t have easy access to healthy food; the closest grocery stores are located about 2.5 miles from the neighborhood. Beyond growing and distributing healthy food, The GrowHaus aims to be a hub of learning about various topics such as nutrition, gardening, cooking and other essential skills for building healthy neighborhoods. They currently educate through three programs; Service Learning, Public Workshops or Seed to Seed, which is a summer leadership program for teens dedicated to learning about nutrition and gardening. With these three facets, the organization believes that it can build a healthier, more sustainable community.

Service-learning is one of the main facets of education for The GrowHaus. It is meant for groups of 10 to 30 people, where the session usually consists of a combination of discussion, hands on activities and volunteer work. This is meant to bring the people in the group together and challenge participants to think about food justice and the community. The groups can be customized depending on what the participants are looking for; whether the partakers would like an education-focused or work-focused experience. The topics for discussion can range anywhere from Food (In)Justice to Critical Pedagogy; anything worth debating that can challenge the mind. People who take these groups range from elementary to college students to corporate offices looking for a teambuilding experience. Wherever the pupils come from and whatever it is that they learn about, as long as they leave with a sense of ownership for the community and/or awareness about sustainability The GrowHaus has done its job.

Another facet of education for The GrowHaus are public workshops, which are fee-based classes that are open to the general public. Classes are usually about topics that The GrowHaus works with on a daily basis such as aquaponics, hydroponics, permaculture, and food justice. A different variation of our workshop is our Seed to Seed program, which is a free summer leadership program for teens that is meant to bring awareness to food justice, healthy eating, and entrepreneurship. This 8-week course brings teenagers who live all over the Denver area together to learn about growing their own food, possibly starting their own business, and creating leadership skills that will greatly help them in the future. Whether these workshops have older people who are with fellow coworkers or teenagers who continue the learning process throughout the summer, these programs are meant to bring people together and create a like-minded awareness for sustainability and the community.

It’s with these various channels of education that The GrowHaus can build a healthier, more sustainable community. It’s only natural that The GrowHaus would support something like the National Service-Learning Conference because the two organizations have such similar missions; The GrowHaus’ mission is to grow a healthy community through food access, production and education, whereas the National Youth Leadership Council’s mission is to create a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world with young people, their schools, and their communities through service-learning. The more that organizations with similar missions like these two work together, the easier it can be for everyone to reach the common goal. It’s at conferences like Without Limits where these like-minded organizations can come together and join forces for the greater good. 

See a video about GrowHaus at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zObN3wCn_t8