Cleveland Botanical Garden

Cleveland Botanical Garden was founded in 1930. Our flagship program, Green Corps, began in 1996. Green Corps’ mission is to build life, work and leadership skills by employing and educating high school youth (ages 14 to 18) through the practice of sustainable agriculture, place-based learning and community engagement. Each year, Green Corps employs and educates an average of 70 to 75 teenagers that live within the city to work at one of six urban learning farms. 

Green Corps youth are hired based on the desire and willingness to conduct physical labor, as well as an ability to demonstrate a sincere interest in learning about gardening, sustainable agriculture and the environment.

Once hired, Green Corps student employees spend the summer working 20 hours per week developing essential work and life skills (team building, work force development, public speaking, entrepreneurship), plant and agricultural science knowledge (restoring vacant urban properties and growing food) and community and environmental stewardship (service learning and neighborhood projects). Through Green Corps’ hands-on learning, these youth begin to see the relevance of their high school education to the real world.

Growing and selling food has been one of the cornerstones of the Green Corps program since it began. Each year, Green Corps strives to increase its production of healthy, local, organically grown food that can be sold all over Cleveland. Green Corps cultivates a wide variety of vegetables, fruit and berries at all of its learning farms, but this is not just a summer growing season.

Inside high tunnels at the Buckeye Woodland Learning Farm, produce is grown over the winter, and seeds are planted for the upcoming season. Beginning in April, seedlings are transplanted out to the farms and cared for by staff and student-employees.

Once the summer season begins in June, we harvest multiple times per week at each learning farm in order to sell our produce at Shaker Square, Cleveland Clinic and Slavic Broadway farmers markets, as well as hosting student-managed weekly onsite market stands at each farm.

Green Corps has expanded the opportunities for its fresh produce to reach the homes and plates of many Clevelanders by now accepting EBT, Senior and WIC farmers market nutrition program (FMNP) vouchers.

Using organic methods to cultivate crops, Green Corps has experienced staff members that train and educate all Green Corps student employees. They learn the latest urban-farming methods so that they can apply these skills and knowledge in the future.