We Grow More Than Plants: Teens Grow Greens offers new-and-improved summer and fall internships for Milwaukee high school students

Milwaukee, WI – Teens Grow Greens is offering new and improved summer and fall internship opportunities for Milwaukee high school students.  Interested teens can apply online now for one or […]

We Grow More Than Plants: Teens Grow Greens offers new-and-improved summer and fall internships for Milwaukee high school students

Milwaukee, WI – Teens Grow Greens is offering new and improved summer and fall internship opportunities for Milwaukee high school students.  Interested teens can apply online now for one or both paid internships.  The summer internship, called Leading For Justice: Food Sovereignty & Urban Gardening, will give teens background on food justice in Milwaukee and a chance to be part of the change at a community garden and local farm.  The fall internship, called Leading Through Creativity: Developing Your Own Business, will give teens hands-on experience in product ideation and design, business model creation, and product pitching, culminating in a November pitch night extravaganza with over $2,000 in prizes.

 

Full details about our internships and the application can be found on our website at teensgrowgreens.org/internships.

All high school students are encouraged to apply, whether they attend public, charter, private, independent, or online school.

 

Summer internship highlights include seed-to-table experiences in gardening and cooking at Westlawn Gardens Community Garden on the northside and at The Cottonwood School on the southside; leadership projects that will see teens collaborating on improving fresh food distribution, health education for Afghan refugee families, and zine creation on environmental justice issues; and field trips to Sweet Water Foundation in Chicago and Beulah Family Homestead in Elkhorn.  (See our video!)

Fall internship highlights include teams receiving $100 in seed money for research and development; weekly guest speakers and mentorship sessions with local entrepreneurs; field trips to local businesses and creative spaces; and table and stage pitching at the annual fundraising event The Perennial.  (See our video!)

Both internships provide much-desired life and career skills training through hands-on learning, guest speakers, and field trips.  Personal and community leadership is also developed, and every teen leaves with a more robust resume, connections to jobs and other opportunities after they graduate, and, most of all, a greater sense of confidence in themselves and their ability to thrive in their present and future lives.

As a local nonprofit, Teens Grow Greens exists to meet the needs and desires of today’s teens, which include

  • resources (including money, support, relationships, community) that meet their human needs;

  • new and exciting experiences that will help them choose their paths in life;

  • purposeful, authentic, hands-on, “real world”  experiences that aren’t provided elsewhere (like school);

  • the chance to develop their unique, confident identities and to connect and belong to something greater than themselves;

  • opportunities to develop their leadership, teamwork, and activism  capabilities; and

  • freedom and independence and joy.

We recognize that systems have traumatized them, institutions have disinvested in them, technologies have dominated them–and conspired to prevent them from realizing their fullest potentials as “healed and healthy humans.”  Therefore, our internships, apprenticeships, graduate support, and community partnerships invest in and believe in the teens who are Milwaukee’s future.

The summer application closes April 15, 3023, and the program can accept up to 60 teens.  Specific dates are as follows:

  • Orientations: June 3, June 10

  • Work sessions: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday from June 12 – August 12, plus August 19 and 26

The fall application closes July 31, 2023, and the program can accept up to 40 teens.  Specific dates are as follows:

  • Orientation: September 9

  • Work sessions: Monday, Wednesday, Saturday from September 11 – November 11