Farm-to-Table Job Training: Grow Local Leaders

Guest Chef Courtney trains apprentice Jorge in basic knife skills.


What might our city look like without homelessness? It might look like more people on pathways to opportunity, like Jacey.

Born and raised in San Francisco, Jacey’s life circumstances kept him locked out of opportunity amidst the worst economic inequality in our country. Following time spent incarcerated, with no money for housing, Jacey was referred by his parole officer to Farming Hope. Earlier this year, he graduated his Farming Hope training cohort and got a full-time job at a local landscaping company. His favorite new thing? Taking his kids to the farmers' market.

Jacey before a recent garden shift. 


Farming Hope is a culinary nonprofit focused on growing leaders. We run a paid, 12-week job training program at our restaurant and garden in San Francisco. We help remove barriers to employment for folks who have experienced homelessness or incarceration. Farming Hope uses food and community as the tools for people to get full-time work and lift themselves out of poverty. As humans, we are all blessed with the power to be leaders: at work, in our food system, in our neighborhoods.

Food sales from our social enterprise restaurant cover our overhead. But in order to hire apprentices, we need donations from neighbors like you to pay their wages. Farming Hope is unique in that we pay our apprentices wages for on-the-job training. Our apprentices need income in order to join a leadership and training program. Help us offer more tools to employ and empower neighbors in San Francisco — donate to help grow 20 new local food system leaders in 2020.

We need to raise $68,000  to hire a total of 20 new apprentices in 2020. We've had more than 30 graduates to date, but we've still got work to do. Here’s how you can sponsor the next Farming Hope apprentice like Jacey:
- $4,800 pays wages for an apprentice for an entire 12-week program.
- $2,250 covers paid hours of six apprentices in our weekly training garden shift.
- $400 provides one week of on-the-job training for one apprentice.

Please help pay it forward so others can build healthier lives for themselves, their families, and our city, like Jacey did.

Farming Hope's fiscal sponsor 501(c)(3) nonprofit is Bountiful Churchyards — 100% of donations are tax deductible and go through Bountiful Churchyards to a project-specific bank account, exclusively for Farming Hope.

We cannot reduce or end poverty and joblessness without people like you joining in community to recognize all neighbors as human beings, fully deserving of opportunities for healthy living and full-time work. With your donation, we can build together the transformational employment and social network required for more and more individuals to thrive and be role models like Jacey. Please join the Farming Hope Squad:
- Donate what you can.
- Share this campaign by Facebook and email.
- Break bread with us at the table. Find our menu and location at farminghope.org.


Jamie Stark

Farming Hope Co-founder and Executive Director




farminghope.org

@farminghope on Facebook & Instagram

Farming Hope's lead line cook Ronnie, in the garden tending to organic greens for our kitchen.