In North St. Louis, Missouri, there are a group of adolescents and young adults learning about economic development, self-sustainability and urban agriculture through the Sweet Potato Project. The Sweet Potato Project, founded in 2012 by St. Louis activist and writer Sylvester Brown Jr., recruits young men and women around North St. Louis and helps them create alternative and progressive ways of producing and distributing locally grown products, as well as teach them sustainable business and entrepreneurial skills that can change their lives.

Sweetpotatoprojectstl.org

The students begin the program with an intensive 10-week summer program where they learn and discuss urban agriculture and self-sustainability, and plant sweet potato seeds in vacant and desolate areas within their community. This is then followed up with entrepreneurial and business skills workshops and classes-mainly taught by other locals around the region who are successful in their field.

After the completion of the 10-weeks and leading into the fall/winter months, the students harvest their produce while working on a business plan to convert the sweet potatoes into sweet potato cookies to sell around the community.

Sweetpotatoprojectstl.org

Sylvester saw two needs that needed to be addressed, and the development of the Sweet Potato Project did just that.

1. Provide employment for youth in the City of St. Louis to earn money and gain job training.

2. Help neighborhoods in north St. Louis become more safe, economically reliant and self-sustainable.

Unfortunately, St. Louis reigns as one of the most dangerous cities in the country. There are currently more than 40,000 St. Louis area youth neither employed or in school, and while they only make up 17 percent of the population, they commit 63 percent of all youth crime according to St. Louis Youth Jobs, a civic collaboration providing meaningful employment opportunities for at-risk youth in St. Louis, Missouri.

Sylvester is well aware of the issues that plague the city and how easy it is for local youth to succumb to those very issues, but with each new group of youth involved in the project, he sees the limitless potential for St. Louis area youth and the entire region.

“These young men and women in North St. Louis are becoming the pioneers of a massive urban agriculture-based development effort in our region. This movement has the potential to increase economic activity and transform disadvantaged neighborhoods into communities with stability, jobs and small businesses”

— Sylvester.

Sweetpotatoprojectstl.org

To learn more about the Sweet Potato Project or for questions on how to support, visit the sweetpotatoprojectstl.org.