Growing Entrepreneurs Program Assistant Internship Program
Summer 2021 Internship Opportunity
Gather New Haven: Gather New Haven unites two nonprofits that have been leaders and innovators of New Haven’s urban environmental movement. The New Haven Land Trust (NHLT), Connecticut’s first urban land trust, has served the community for nearly 40 years by acquiring and stewarding over 80 acres of nature preserves city-wide and by supporting 55 community gardens throughout New Haven’s diverse neighborhoods. NHLT has grown significantly over the last five years to include programs for young environmental entrepreneurs and a marine and coastal exploration summer camp on Long Island Sound. New Haven Farms (NHF) burst onto the scene seven years ago with its innovative Farm-Based Wellness Program (FBWP) that partners with medical centers to engage people with diet-related chronic disease risk factors in learning about nutrition and gardening at one of their seven urban farms across New Haven.
Both organizations have a growing commitment to racial equity and community leadership and have taken strides in cultivating community ownership among its stakeholders. A large part of both organizations’ work, especially New Haven Farms, takes place in bi-lingual settings, with Spanish as the predominant language. The merged organization synergizes closely aligned missions, values, programming, and diverse support networks into a leader for advancing engagement and stewardship of urban nature as a resource for healthy people and communities.
Position Description: We are looking for one or more interns to work on development and implementation of our Growing Entrepreneurs program. The Growing Entrepreneurs year-round jobs program employs high school students at Gather New Haven where they improve their professional skills, learn about environmental issues, gain experience in carpentry and agriculture, and pilot small businesses designed to help their community and environment.
From 2016-2020, interns have helped develop the professional skills and entrepreneurship curriculum for our Growing Entrepreneurs program. This year, we are looking for interns to continue to develop curriculum, fleshing out training and programming as well as expanding our network of collaborators and mentors for the program. We are working to make our entrepreneurial agriculture curriculum into a strong, replicable model for other programs to reference. The interns will also work directly with current Growing Entrepreneurs on the development of their small business ideas, help them to run these ventures, and will lead professional skills workshops for the students. The internship will also involve working with the youth to take on large-scale projects in our community gardens.
The project will entail a research component, curriculum development component, and practical component. Since the internship will coincide with the five-week Youth@Work program, when the Growing Entrepreneurs work 25 hours/week, we expect the applicant to work closely with the youth and the program manager to help the youth with their social enterprises including a community composting business, a carpentry business, and farm businesses.
Required Skills: We are looking for individuals with:
Ability to motivate themselves, pursue leads without significant supervision;
Enthusiasm and strong interest in gardening and environmental issues;
Interest in working in a small but dynamic team of individuals and occasionally supporting other initiatives over the summer;
Interest in contributing at times through physical manual labor to ongoing garden projects. The individual will be expected to participate enthusiastically in gardening and carpentry activities;
Strong knowledge of and interest in entrepreneurship and ability to create a business plan;
Carpentry experience
Experience working with young people
A driver’s license (required)
Hours/Wages: Our office generally operates from 9 to 5 with additional evening and weekend events over the summer. We would like the applicant to commit to full time or close to full time for the summer. Students will need to find funding from their university independently. Yale students have funding for this internship available from the Yale Club.
Internship Dates: This year, in order to streamline our internship program, we will offer two intern orientation/start dates: May 24th and July 5th. The May date is strongly preferred for this position. Internships can run from 8 to 12 weeks.
Supervisors: Summer interns will be supervised by the Program Manager, Esther Rose-Wilen.
