New Haven Farms

Wellness program New Haven Farms delivered our 18-week farm-based wellness program to 100 medically referred families, or approximately 500 individuals, who live within 200% of the federal poverty level and suffer from at least two risk factors for diabetes or diet-related chronic disease. Participants and their families learned cooking, nutrition, and farming for 2 hours/week on our urban Farms. Each week of the program, participants receive a shared meal and a family-sized share of fruits and vegetables, along with culturally relevant recipes and handouts. Participant outcomes include 47.4% reported change in food insecurity status; 50% of program participants had a decrease in bmi, with average percent decrease of 30% in bmi score; 60 minute increase in weekly exercise per person; increase of 1.27 servings of fruits and vegetables per day per person; 91% reported changes in eating habits, including trying more vegetables after the program. Outside the growing season, participants gathered in monthly support groups to continue supporting participants' health goals and provide exercise classes. 80 families have gone on to grow their own food in the incubator garden program, demonstrating long-term steps for food security and behavior change.community health ambassadors the community health ambassador program is a leadership program available to graduates of the farm based wellness program. Exemplary graduates apply for the program and are selected to join the staff as community health ambassadors (cha). Chas undergo training and participate in workshops to further develop their leadership skills and learn behavior change methodologies to become the next generation of community change-makers. The following spring, they return to the farm-based wellness program as leaders and help the next generation of participants reach their goals and work through challenges that arise. They also provide program support and run additional exercise programming. This experience develops job skills and opportunities, as well as developing the communities in which the community health ambassadors live. Currently 16 graduates of the farm based wellness program are working as part-time paid staff through the community health ambassadors program.

Incubator garden New Haven Farms partners with the New Haven land trust to support farm-based wellness program graduates to grow their own food in neighborhood community gardens after completing the wellness program. Twenty families participated in the inaugural year, 2015. Harvard pilgrim health care foundation awarded our organizations three years of funding to expand the program. The New Haven Farms farm manager or land trust garden manager meet with the garden cohort once a week during the growing season to provide support and teach advanced gardening techniques at the english street community garden in fair Haven adjacent to the 613 ferry street farm site built in 2015. In 2019 there are 80 gardeners actively growing their own produce in through the incubator garden program

Farm operations New Haven Farms programs and farm sites are developed in partnership with a large group of nonprofit, for-profit, and government agencies, some of which include New Haven land trust, chabaso bakery, city of New Haven's livable city initiative, phoenix press, yale school of public health, common ground high school, cityseed, and johnny's seeds. 100,000 pounds of organically grown vegetables have been produced on our seven farm sites in New Haven since 2012, with the majority of food going to low-income participants in the farm-based wellness program. New Haven Farms operates a farm stand on one of the farm sites from may through october, selling produce as a discounted rate in an area where access to high quality fresh produce is limited.