HOPE Garden Student Stipends

Hands-On Personal Empowerment (HOPE Garden) engages Mason County Youth to become empowered, productive members of their local community and the world they will inherit.
    We employ older youth, many of whom are experiencing disenfranchisement due to homeless, living in poverty, dealing with addiction or past trauma, etc. Our youth crew ranges in ages 14-20 and programming takes place over 8 weeks during the summer. Our youth crew work on the farm learning sustainable agriculture, food justice, healthy habits, and job skills. In addition to the rigorous farm work, our crew members run our farmer's market booth, make and package our HOPE granola, and do community service projects around Shelton. We also spend time playing team building games, practicing positive communication techniques, and doing self-expressive art projects. The changes we see in the youth we work with over a summer is phenominal.

     We pay our youth crew a sipend of $25 per day. Many members of our youth crew use this money to buy groceries for their families, help pay househould bills, and buy back-to-school supplies. Due to a significant reduction in our main funding grant this year, we do not have the money to support the stipends for summer 2017, so we are asking you, our neighbors, friends, allies and those that care about the future of our local, and global community, to help support these amazing young people. A full sponsorship for one summer youth crew member is $700 ($600 in stipend money and $100 for crew shirt, water bottle, food and supplies) Any and every donation amount is greatly appreciated!