The rain held off! So on Thursday, Aug. 2, the Food Moxie staff and our partners at the Teen Leadership Corps were able to host more than 30 young people from around Philadelphia at the third annual “Gather for Good” conference at the Awbury Arboretum Agricultural Village.

The conference is a culmination of a summer of hard work and community building with teens working with the Philadelphia Youth Network, an organization that connects young people in our city with opportunities for employment. 

This year, the conference was led and organized by and for youth. Teenagers working with TLC and Food Moxie at Awbury for six weeks over the summer gained valuable experience in urban farming. At Gather for Good, they hosted other youth from organizations and neighborhoods outside Germantown, leading attendees on a tour of the Agricultural Village, introducing them to what’s growing and making noise on an urban farm. The young guests (and likely the adults who were present, too) left with a new appreciation for urban farming. 

Workshops focused on how to use different items from an urban farm to make art, a do-it-yourself sugar scrub and local, seasonal kebabs. The blender bike, brought to us by our friends at Electrical Wizardry, was also a big hit, as were the screen-printed T-shirts using a specially made screen. 

Thanks to the Food Moxie and TLC teams for the work that they put into Gather for Good to make it a huge success!