Urban Agriculture Internship at The Working Centre
2020 Season
Applications are now closed for 2020
The Working Centre is offering an internship opportunity for three or four individuals in a unique community-based urban agricultural setting located in the city of Kitchener, Ontario.
The Working Centre Market Garden is an inclusive, hands-on learning environment that demonstrates, promotes, and shares knowledge about sustainable food production. Volunteers are an integral part of the project - both in day-to-day operation and shaping its overall direction. This internship position offers an opportunity to actively engage in the work of building a more sustainable community-based food system, while also helping to build community by working closely with volunteer gardeners; often facilitating work tasks and crews, as well as teaching and learning alongside volunteer gardeners and staff.
The Working Centre
The Working Centre is a non-profit, community-based, volunteer-inspired organization that seeks to give individuals and groups access to tools and opportunities to become involved in productive community building projects in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. As one of the Working Centre’s “Community Tools Projects,” our goal at the Hacienda Sarria Market Garden is to create community while learning and sharing the skills of sustainable market gardening in an urban setting.
Internship Position
Interns will work alongside staff and volunteer gardeners to grow vegetables, flowers, and fruits, using a small-plot bio-intensive model on about 1.5 acres of land. Interns will have opportunities to learn about practical models for growing, greenhouse management, soil fertility, crop rotations, pests and beneficial insects, plant pathogens, irrigation and water conservation, planting and nurturing crops using organic, regenerative, and agroecological methods, as well as harvesting, preparing, and marketing vegetables, fruits, and flowers through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share program. There will also be opportunities to develop transferable leadership, entrepreneurial, and organizational skills associated with active participation in a lively and diverse community-enterprise. The learning will be both “on the job” as well as self-directed and self-initiated.
Everyone brings different hopes into an internship role and we work hard to ensure that each intern’s personal learning objectives are met. We are looking for individuals from a range of backgrounds who are eager to engage with the community and are interested in beginning a conversation into the unique ways they can contribute to the project. Included in this conversation will be the potential time commitment as well as the amount of financial support we can offer. In previous seasons we have sought out interns who can join us full time for a 4 month or 6 month period.
Personal Goals
A possible intern will desire to…
- join in the hard work of operating a market garden
- learn and teach about organic farming practices (either as a beginner or intermediate)
- work alongside volunteer gardeners to build relationships and community around urban gardening
- develop and refine “soft skills” such as conflict resolution, working collaboratively, and problem solving
- reflect and engage with others around the ideas and philosophies that make and keep our work meaningful
Volunteering at the Working Centre
The Working Centre seeks to build on the ideas of Common Work - the work of sustaining and supporting a creative community committed to the common good. For more reading on the ideas shaping The Working Centre, go to www.theworkingcentre.org.
To begin the conversation contact us at:
garden@theworkingcentre.org
519-575-1118
