By The Hand Club For Kids, together with Freight to Plate and Kenilworth Union Church celebrated the ribbon cutting and first harvest at Bowen Harvest, a hub for youth entrepreneurship, nutrition education and community nourishment in the Altgeld Gardens community. Anchored by Chicago’s only youth-led not-for-profit container farm, Bowen Harvest will empower high school students at By The Hand’s Altgeld-Murray site to develop food solutions for their community while getting hands-on lessons in entrepreneurship and agricultural technology. Surrounded by partners and members of the community, Bowen Harvest’s 13 student entrepreneurs harvested their first crops – leafy lettuce – just six weeks after planting seedlings in their new, state-of-the-art hydroponic container farm. The 500-square-foot container farm will produce more than one ton of fresh, nutrient dense produce for the community each year, filling a significant need in one of the nation’s starkest food deserts, where the nearest grocery store is more than three miles away. The youth entrepreneurs – high school students in nearby CPS schools and participants at By The Hand’s Altgeld-Murray site – will be responsible for operations at Bowen Harvest, overseeing crop planning, mineral and water management, lighting and temperature control and harvesting. For more information about Bowen Harvest, please visit www.bythehand.org.

Photo Credit: By The Hand Club for Kids