Garden/Nutrition Internship Opportunity!

Position Description:
Part-time Garden/Nutrition Intern

We are looking for a part-time intern who will focus on the technical garden planning/nutrition aspects of Gardenspace at Womanplace during its first season. This position will be critical to  establishing the garden in its new location and setting the foundation for future work. The intern will work in collaboration with a team; most importantly, the intern will work closely with a graduate MSW student intern who oversees the social and organizational components of the project. This is an unpaid, part-time internship. The time commitment for this position will depend upon experience and skill, and will range from 4-12 hours per week for the 2017 Spring Semester.

About the Gardenspace Project

Gardenspace is a new collaborative effort between the Somerville Community Health Agenda at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and CASPAR.  For 7 years, The CHA School of Nursing building at Somerville Hospital was the site of a food production garden called “The Spring Hill Garden”, which created access to healthy food by supplying fresh produce to local food pantries and residence programs. This past summer, external circumstances created a need for the garden to relocate. Fortunately,  one of Spring Hill Garden’s key distribution sites, a CASPAR residential program called Womanplace, offered to host the site of a new garden. Womanplace is a transitional residential program serving adult women in recovery. The new garden will initially supply produce to the residence and eventually to the wider community, while also supporting the healing and recovery of Womanplace residents and offering them the opportunity to gain valuable personal and work skills.

Tasks
Help design raised bed infrastructure to be installed Spring 2017 Facilitate rotational garden planning for the 2017 growing season, to support nutritional food options in the program with input from residents Supervise preparation, planting, and garden maintenance Develop harvesting guidelines and sample calendars Work collaboratively with graduate intern to develop events and on-going, sustainable programming integrating gardening and nutrition into site Maintain active communication with key team members, including staff, residents and volunteers Support a therapeutic working environment

Qualifications
Gardening/farming experience and skills, preferably including vegetable production and/or urban agriculture Experiential food and nutrition education experience and/or interest in developing Interest in issues of food access and security, sustainable agriculture, and/ or horticultural therapy Strong communication and interpersonal skills; motivational interviewing training a plus but not required Teaching experience preferred, but not required Good organizational skills

Benefits
Gain leadership experience
Develop gardening and professional skills Contribute to the creation of an important community project

How to Apply
Send a resume and letter of interest to Lisa Brukilacchio at CHA at lbrukilacchio@challiance.org