Transforming Food Justice Youth-Led Hydroponics with Katherine Soll

Episode Overview

Episode Topic

In this episode of NeutralPreneur, host Bethany Jolley engages in a compelling conversation with Katherine Soll, the CEO and founder of Teens for Food Justice (TFJ). Katherine shares the remarkable journey of founding TFJ, a pioneering organization that integrates school-based, youth-led hydroponic farming to combat food insecurity and promote food justice. The episode delves into how TFJ is revolutionizing access to healthy food in underserved communities, empowering students to take active roles in addressing food deserts, and fostering a new generation of leaders passionate about sustainable agriculture and social equity.

Lessons You’ll Learn

Listeners will learn about the critical role of youth engagement in creating sustainable and equitable food systems. Katherine Soll discusses the inspiration behind TFJ and the initial challenges faced in establishing the organization. She emphasizes the power of involving young people in social justice initiatives and highlights the transformative impact of hydroponic farming in schools. The episode also covers how TFJ’s programs not only educate students about agriculture and nutrition but also empower them to become health and nutrition ambassadors in their communities. Katherine’s insights provide valuable lessons on integrating innovative educational approaches to address systemic issues in food access and health.

About Our Guest

Katherine Soll is the visionary CEO and founder of Teens for Food Justice, an organization dedicated to ending food insecurity and promoting food justice through youth-led hydroponic farming. With a background in social justice and a deep commitment to empowering young people, Katherine has transformed TFJ into a catalyst for change in underserved communities. Her leadership has been instrumental in developing programs that not only provide access to healthy food but also educate and inspire students to become advocates for sustainable agriculture and equitable food systems. Katherine’s work at TFJ reflects her passion for creating lasting social impact and fostering a generation of leaders equipped to address food justice issues.

Topics Covered

This episode covers a range of important topics, including the founding story of Teens for Food Justice and the challenges overcome in its early days. Katherine Soll discusses the integration of TFJ’s hydroponic farms into schools and the significant impact these programs have had on students and their communities. The conversation explores the role of hydroponic technology in enhancing food production and accessibility, and how TFJ uses this technology to teach valuable skills and promote health. Additionally, Katherine shares inspiring success stories of students who have become leaders and advocates through their involvement with TFJ. The episode concludes with a look at TFJ’s future projects and ways listeners can support and get involved with the organization’s mission.

Our Guest:  Katherine Soll  Food Justice Youth-Led Hydroponics

Episode Transcript

Bethany Jolley: Welcome back to neutral Preneur. Where we explore groundbreaking ideas and nutrition and health. I’m your host, Bethany. Today we’re honored to have Katherine Soll with us, the CEO and founder of teens for Food Justice. Catherine’s leadership at TFA is not just transforming how communities access food, but is also empowering the next generation to lead the way in food justice. Let’s dive into how teen for food’s justice is changing the landscape of health and nutrition and food deserts. Welcome, Katherine. It’s so great to have you today.

Katherine Soll: Hi Bethany, thank you so much for having me on the show. Very excited to be here.

Bethany Jolley: Yeah. So first off, I think it would be great if you could share with us the inspiration behind Founding Teens for Food Justice and the initial challenges that you faced.

Katherine Soll: So I just strongly and deeply believe that young people,  and their vision and their passion for a better world,  is really the key to building equity in our future. And I believe that empowering them to really find and unleash those tools and those assets,  on behalf of all of us is really, you know, the basis for how we’re going to, you know, build better systems, more equitable systems across the board.  I was inspired to start this organization,  when my own kids were in school and,  you know, they had community service requirements to graduate, but they really were disconnected from the actual social justice challenges that we live with in our society. I’m a lifelong New Yorker, and I’ve seen inequity build across our city over my lifetime.  and so I felt it was important to either find or create a way for kids in New York City who all share that requirement to come together to explore,  social injustice and inequity and to understand how those key actors,  agencies and not for profits,  and visionaries across the city were trying to combat that and to give them the power to think about those ideas, to have dialog with one another across demographics about that,  and to really become,  committed to to civic action and social justice throughout their lifetimes. And so I, we formed an organization called students for service, which was bringing high school students from across New York City together in these projects.  It was all volunteer work. We had so many dedicated people who gave of their time, and what we found was that students were really, really,  concerned about the issue of food insecurity, but also sustainable agriculture. And so we decided to really drill down into that. And that’s how teens for Food Justice was born with a focus on hydroponic farming in schools.

Bethany Jolley: Yes That’s incredible. You know, educating the next generation, I think, is so important. And getting them involved in this area is fantastic. So it’s great that you’ve been able to do that. Yeah. And so I know you kind of have touched on this already with schools, but how does TFX integrate into schools and what impact have you seen in these communities so far?

Katherine Soll: So Tfjs mission is to build a food secure future through school based, youth led hydroponic farming and to also end the cycle of poor health outcomes that we see as a result of diet related disease that’s directly related to low access to healthy food and to,  bridge these education, health and opportunity gaps that we see across our communities and specifically impacting low income communities of color. So TPH goes into title one schools. We currently operate in New York City and in Denver, and we build very high capacity hydroponic farms on a small commercial scale. Our farms are capable of producing as much as 10,000 pounds of produce per year because it’s high capacity indoor vertical farming. As one of our employees likes to refer to it, it’s the perfect summer day every day,  on our farms. And our students are engaged in the farm throughout their school day. They come into the farm for classes. Those classes could be science classes where the farm is serving as a lab for living environment or environmental science explorations. They come in for health classes. We have art teachers and civics teachers who bring their students in. Clubs come into the farm, self-created clubs by the students focused on hydroponics. We run robust after school programming that focuses on not only urban agriculture, but also health and nutrition.  how to cook with the plants, develop recipes.  It really deeply connecting the kids not only to the produce but also to ways of integrating fresh produce into their diets and to think about recipes that they love, but putting a healthier spin on them. But very importantly, how to be teens for food justice, to understand food policy and and the systems that have put us into the place where we are around our very broken food system and how to think about changing that.  We engage our kids in opportunities to speak to policymakers, elected officials, corporate representatives who are involved in all aspects of, you know, the food world so that they have the opportunity to actually use their voices and to see the power that they have to make change.

Bethany Jolley: Yes. That’s incredible that you’re able to utilize these farms for a different type of classroom to teach these students valuable skills that they’ll be able to utilize throughout the rest of their life. Really?

Katherine Soll: Yes, that’s the goal.  You know, the goal is to really engage these kids and to provide them with the ability to connect,  with this passion and with their voices for change at a young age and to keep them connected.  for the long term. And that means voting. It means potentially getting involved in policy or politics. It means getting involved, potentially in the agriculture field and helping to develop these new alternative forms of agriculture that are inevitable.  because we are not sustainably able to continue to grow food the way that we currently do, or to use our land the way that we do or our energy.  it might be that they would be interested in going into health and focusing on, you know, the degree to which health outcomes and, you know, the cost of pharmaceuticals and other types of medical interventions are being driven by, you know, our food system and the kinds of food that are available to people widely across this country. So,  you know, they really understand and plug into this issue almost immediately. It does not take much time for the kids to really begin that conversation themselves once they walk into the farm and they’re like, whoa, you know, we’re growing food in our school. I’ve never seen this before. I’ve never seen, you know, a lot of these plants before. What are they? How come lettuce doesn’t look like this in my neighborhood? You know why? Why is it so expensive if I. You know, this wilted lettuce that’s in my supermarket? Why is it cost so much? So, you know, you open up that dialog and then you can go really deep and really broad.

Bethany Jolley: Yes. That’s incredible. And can you discuss with us a bit more about the role of hydroponic technology in your operations, and how did this choice enhance the effectiveness and the outreach of your programs?

Katherine Soll: Yeah. So excuse me. We were really focused on hydroponics in the beginning.  we, uh, our board chair, who’s one of our co-founders,  Tara Smith swivel was very interested in hydroponics and in,  systems where, you know, such as in, at the Whole Foods here in New York City, in Brooklyn, where there’s a Gotham Greens,  hydroponic farm on the roof of that store, and the food is being directly brought down into the store for distribution. So eliminating food miles, increasing freshness and nutrient density, etc.. And, you know, we started to talk about like, well, you know, if food insecurity is such a problem for so many of our children attending New York City public schools or public schools across the country, then how could you take a concept like that and make it more feasible for our children and for their families and their broader communities to, you know, have access to healthy food to change the food scape where they live, and to do that in a way that creates a sustainable, growing platform. And so, you know, plugging into this technology, which is growing so, so quickly was something that we just immediately believed in. We just, you know, really felt that hydroponic indoor vertical agriculture is so poised to be an economic engine.

Katherine Soll:  and providing students who have been so disconnected from healthy food throughout their lives, within their communities, and giving them the agency to be the drivers of this new industry, giving them the agency to be the drivers of the outcomes that this new industry could provide, particularly in urban areas where we don’t have the ability to use land to grow. Food was something that, you know, would be really innovative, and the idea of building this inside school buildings,  you know, just was really disruptive in an unusual kind of way. And so there were many, many challenges in doing that, you know, is very disruptive. And schools are not necessarily, you know, built to intrinsically understand why bringing a farm into the building is a feasible solution, although there was a lot of enthusiasm for it right out of the gate.  but you know, this concept,  and experiential learning, particularly since Covid and and learning loss experienced by students and the disconnection from going to school every day.  experiential learning has become a really important way of our educational system, looking at how we teach young people. And so our program is just growing really, really rapidly.  and so I think, you know, we hit a wave in, in many different ways.

Bethany Jolley: Yes And I think what’s so great about TFP is not only that you’re trying to grow food, but you’re also cultivating young leaders. So can you explain more about the process of transforming these students into health and nutrition ambassadors?

Katherine Soll: Yeah. So I mean, the program is called teens for Food Justice for a reason. You know, our students drive the program. So a great deal of the focus is on exposing the students to the farm and to the concepts and to the issues, and then letting them explore and talk with one another and come up with projects that they themselves want to drive. And that may be,  how do we improve school lunch? How do we make that vegan option tastier? You know, how do we eliminate food waste in our communities?  how do we utilize the produce that we grow for entrepreneurship,  and market opportunities.  There are so many different avenues that our students can explore.  how do we look at policies that can change the systems in our neighborhoods that have to do maybe with zoning or with rent or, you know, converting bodegas into retail environments that have the capacity to store more fresh food? So that ability for them to think about what projects they want to explore, excuse me, through the farm, I think is the key and that that really creates that engagement. You know, our students don’t particularly our middle school students, right? They don’t have very many opportunities to feel like they have that kind of agency and control. And so by providing that, they get really connected to this program because they see it as theirs. And I think that’s a really important component of it.  they see this as theirs. They see the problem is theirs. They see the ability to solve it as theirs. And if you provide people with that point of view and that sense of agency, I think they really run with it..

Bethany Jolley:  Yes. That’s so.Important. And you provided a lot of different examples, but is there any particular success story of a student or school where TFA made a significant difference?

Katherine Soll: Well, my favorite story to tell along those lines is our senior farmer educator, Alyssa Gardner Vasquez, who started with us ten years ago,  when we opened our first hydroponic farm in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. And she was a student volunteer. And this was when, you know, we were still operating under that volunteer model, bringing kids together on Saturdays and on holidays to volunteer and service projects across our city. And this was the first one that we did where hydroponics was the focus. We were testing the model of teens for food justice, and Alyssa came applied for the program along with many other kids. And she was, you know, really top selection. She was super interested in agriculture, family history, in that I’m interested in studying sustainability. When she graduated the following year and had, you know, was applying to colleges with that in mind. And she started with me basically, you know, like we opened this farm and she was there.  and she has remained with our program throughout. She graduated high school and started college. She went on to be a mentor in our program, helping to guide the younger students,  through the program when we opened our second form at a school in the Clinton Hill Bed-Stuy area, she became our farmer educator there on a part time basis while going to college.  She worked for us remotely,  developing curriculum and programing while our farms were closed during the pandemic. And then she finished her college degree and she said, would you guys have a position for me? And we hired her right out of the gate at our largest farm at the MLK Jr Educational Campus in Manhattan, as our senior farmer educator.

Katherine Soll: And not only is she managing this farm, which does grow 10,000 pounds of produce per year, and she manages, I don’t know, 20 some odd classes coming through the farm every week, two after school programs, a number of interns who pass through our program in her farm, and she also trains many other farmer educators from other schools who are learning how to manage their farms. And she’s just the most incredible leader and teacher. And, you know, her students just love Miss G. And,  she’s just one of those students who really, you know, I don’t know how we would have built the program without her, quite honestly. So,  she speaks so eloquently about the meaning that this program has had in her life. And,  that’s a story that I love to tell.  We also have another young person who joined our team this year, Joshua Delgado, and he was a student at our DeWitt Clinton High School campus. And he worked for us part time as a mentor and as an intern for several years. And then just this past January, he joined our team full time as our food distribution coordinator. So that’s another story that, you know, makes me very proud and very happy.

Bethany Jolley: Yes That’s really great that, you know, it shows.

Bethany Jolley: What Kind of impact you’re having on these students that they want to make a career out of this, and they want to continue working with you and working with this program because they know that it’s making a difference. So both of those are wonderful success stories.

Katherine Soll: I think that one of the things that’s very exciting about it, we also had a student in Denver who shared when she went through the program,  that she was actually going to school to be a nurse and that what she had learned about food, food systems and the health impacts of your food choices and obviously the choices that are being made for you around food,  is so those things are so intertwined in that as a clinician in the future, she now really understood the importance of really working with her patients to understand the health impacts of the food that they eat. And for me, that was so profound. You know, she’d only been in the program for a few months when she expressed that. So, you know, the program has the ability to change perspective and to provide lifelong lessons and tools for students that make them ambassadors for this way into the future. And I think that that’s a piece of it that I feel really strongly and proud about, which is that the students feel very urgently the need to communicate what it is they’re they’re learning here and the work that they’re doing here.  and a lot of them talk about how they are responsible for, like, picking up their little siblings after school and taking, you know, feeding them.  and that the way they think about food when it comes to their little sibling’s diet has now really fundamentally changed that they feel a great responsibility to think about, how can I maximize the nutritional benefit of the food that my little brother or sister is eating? And that’s huge. That’s a huge change that’s happening very, very quickly.

Bethany Jolley: Yes, healthy.Diet habits are so important. And so my next question kind of touches on this. So how do you tackle the challenge of introducing and maintaining new dietary habits in households that were previously unfamiliar with healthy food options?

Katherine Soll: Well, we know, we’re not going home with the students, right? So it’s all self-reporting, and it’s also reporting from parents who are coming through the program. And it’s also what we’re hearing in terms of feedback from families who are picking up food at our campus, and distributions across all of our sites. Every site has campus distributions for families who are interested in the food. They sign up for it and they pick it up on, you know, weekly or bi weekly basis.  and also our community partners, where we’re distributing food into the local community through their programs where they may be running, you know, emergency food distributions,  of their own. But now our program is bringing fresh produce in, you know, 365 days a year, which makes a huge difference in communities which are relying on emergency food assistance.  What we feel and what we’ve seen and heard is the critical importance of providing connections of the food that you’re growing and the food that you’re distributing to actual meals. So providing cooking demonstrations, tastings of the food. Our students do a tremendous amount of cooking on the farm, particularly during after school, so that they feel connected to the food that they grow their thinking about. How do I eat bok choy? Right? It’s not just I got bok choy, but what can I make with bok choy? Or what can I do with Swiss chard? Right. And so we’re always we’re always working very, very hard on that piece of it.  and we provide recipes that can go home with the food that is distributed so that people have the ability to cook with this food at home. It’s not just like, what is this thing that’s in my bag?  The other thing that we do is we really we have a menu of about 38 different crops that we grow in the farm between herbs and leafy greens,  and, uh, fruiting crops.

Katherine Soll: And we really solicit requests from our students and from our community members. What is it that you want to grow? What is it that you are missing that you would like to eat? And one of the things that we recently added to our mix of produce is callaloo, because that is a traditional Caribbean green that a lot of our families cook with and want and have difficulty accessing. And so we’re also growing what is culturally relevant for the communities where we are located. And I think that’s another piece that’s really important, which is, you know, and is really driving this work from the beginning, which is we’re not looking to come and build our program and just, you know, make you fit into it. Our goal is to work with the community that exists. There’s great work around food justice and around food systems movement building across the city and across the country. If we’re going into a community, we want to know who is already doing this work here and what are your needs and what are your gaps, and how can we fit there? Because if we can’t fit into that ecosystem, we will not be successful.  You know, you have to be part of a system. And that’s why so many cities are, you know, doing urban food policy mapping and urban agriculture mapping and planning, because everybody is understanding that this is a holistic system that has to integrate many, many parts.

Bethany Jolley:  Yes. It’s great.That you’re, you know, adapting to

Bethany Jolley: The different cultural preferences as well because you want to provide healthy foods that they actually want to eat or that they’re looking for and maybe missing out in their diet. So that’s great that you’re doing that. And it sounds like TF is going through a lot of growth and expansion and innovation. So looking ahead, what are the upcoming projects planned for TF?

Katherine Soll: Well, one of the most exciting projects that we launched recently, and which is continuing to grow, is our Far Rockaway School based farm hub. And,  that is a very unique project. It’s really a regional hub that is centered in an area of New York City, which is, you know, isolated from the rest of the city. Only one train line runs out to the Rockaways. And,  when you look at the Rockaways in relation to the rest of the city, you know, the demographics,  around,  poverty, uh, diet related disease and food, healthy food access or food access at all are, are, you know, they’re pretty stark contrasts.  so this is an opportunity to bring not only food resources, but also educational and opportunity resources to students who live on the Rockaways.  and really starting with our youngest children going all the way through high school so that kids will be able to be connected to urban agriculture from, you know, really, right when they start school all the way through high school.  The Farm Hub is a partnership between the USDA, TFA,  the Queen’s South, uh, Borough office of the Department of Education here in the City of New York, and our Queens Borough president, who has provided capital funding for these projects. Two of the schools in the farm hub are already up and running.  our two high school locations. And actually those two farms serve five high schools because one of our campuses is co-located schools of four schools on that one campus. And then there are two middle schools,  two middle school campuses that are in the pipeline that are due to open by the end of the year.

Katherine Soll: And now there is another middle school that is in the project planning phase. And so, you know, to be able to drive that kind of regional effort where you have the capability to sort of saturate this community that did not have any of these resources before with food, with health and nutrition education, with experiential education, with, you know, community connections to what is actually a, a fairly robust,  urban agriculture and community garden movement in on the peninsula, which you, you know, was very, very hard hit by hurricane Sandy and is still actually rebuilding.  you know, is a very powerful thing. And it’s that kind of regional planning that we hope to be able to continue to develop going forward.  and we are having those conversations with other cities in the United States right now. Our program in Denver,  which was a very exciting expansion.  You know, it was right before Covid that we started that planning process. And the original goal was to have three schools really up and running out of the gate. But obviously Covid kind of stopped that. But we are working with Denver Public Schools to bring at least one additional school online within the next couple of years, and to explore how our farms can be part of a larger regional focus that that city is looking at around career and technical education for students, which is another part of the work that TFX is really doing, which is, you know, building out a hydroponic urban agriculture career and technical education track that can provide students who graduate high school with certification where they could go into this field directly out of high school.

Bethany Jolley: Yes, a lot of exciting things ahead. And, you know, your mission is so important. So in what ways can our listeners contribute or get involved with Teens for Food Justice to help promote and extend your mission?

Katherine Soll: Well, obviously follow our social media channels, which you can find on our website, teens for Food Justice. Org and you can sign up for our newsletter as well.  You know, it takes a large community to build a program of this scope and scale. So,  you know, your support, your financial support, your strategic support is very valuable. A lot of your listeners are involved in some way, shape or form with food and,  food industry. And, you know, there are many different ways in which companies like that can help to support our program, whether it’s through strategic support or in-kind donations as well as financial support.  you can reach me at k f sol at teens for Food Justice. Org  and you know, we’re really interested. Partnership is the foundation of our organization and is the reason why we’ve grown so quickly. So, you know, please, if you’ve got something that you’re interested in discussing or interested in partnering with us on, or have a suggestion for how we can do it better, we are really open and always actively seeking out that kind of guidance. So  that please don’t hesitate to reach out and please support our program and the work that we’re doing for, you know, ten tens of thousands of students and community members both in New York and Denver currently and hopefully way beyond in the future.

Bethany Jolley: Neat well, Katherine Once again, thank you for sharing the inspiring work of teens for Food Justice with us today. To our listeners, if you’re inspired to support or learn more about TFP, please check out the links in our show notes. Remember, each one of us can contribute to a healthier, more equitable food system. Subscribe to neutropenia for more stories like Catherine’s and join us next time as we continue to unveil the innovations shaping the nutraceutical world. Stay informed and engaged.