Cultivating Knowledge

At a glance, the Farmer's Market held on an open strip of sidewalk near 37th Street and Lancaster Avenue looks like any other.

Every Saturday from May to October, farmers line up tables of colorful fruits and vegetables as passersby peruse the selection of food.

Some customers ask questions about how fresh the produce is; others pull out their wallets and purchase the weekly special.

And at the end of the day, the vendors pack up their things and go home, only to come back for more business the following week.

But this particular market -- or the Powelton Village Farmer's Market, to be exact -- has a lot more depth to it than what first meets the eye.

Operated by a group of University City High School students called the University City Farmer's Collective, the operation is not just about buying and selling fresh produce grown in rural areas.

Yes, there are a few farmers from Lancaster County who trek into the city every Saturday with truckloads of fruits and vegetables waiting to be sold.

At the same time, however, the market is based around a much broader set of goals.

An offshoot of the Urban Nutrition Initiative -- an ongoing effort to improve nutritional standards in the urban community -- the market is a part of an urban agricultural project geared toward increasing the access of fresh produce to the West Philadelphia community.

"We started the farmer's market last year as a way to supply fresh produce to this area because there are hardly any grocery stores around here that sell fresh food," UNI Youth Business Coordinator Melanie Gnazzo (SEAS '01) said.

"At the same time, it was an opportunity for our students to expand the entrepreneurial nature of our program so we could harvest from the garden and sell it at the market," she added.

Now up and running for its second year in a row, the market allows a group of local students to learn about entrepreneurship by giving them the direct opportunity to run a business.

As members of UNI's Roots Program -- a curriculum based around the development of agriculturally-based businesses at public schools in West Philadelphia -- the students involved with the market participate in an after-school program that is centered around learning basic entrepreneurial skills in a hand's on environment.

During the week, they get ready for Saturday's operation by planting and harvesting vegetables in a garden near their school, ordering bread, yogurt and cheese from local food vendors and learning the financial background needed to maintain a successful business.

In addition, they are also responsible for larger-scale publicity and marketing projects geared toward retaining a basis of regular customers and, in the process, making sure that the other vendors keep coming back on Saturdays to set up shop.

"Basically, we're trying to make it as much their business as we can -- that's why we're trying to have them order all the goods and decide how much to order and what to order and what they think would be most profitable," UNI volunteer Rhodes Yepsen explained. "It's a basic way to teach something in an informal setting and then take it and put it to use."

Based around the concept of a collective -- an alternative form of operating a company that doesn't employ the standard hierarchical system -- the program requires the students themselves to take responsibility for every aspect of how their business runs.

The students, who receive a salary on top of a percentage of the sales from the market, work as a team as they make decisions about what they are going to sell, how much it will cost and how best to market their products.

"It's a flat system where all of the students have to start knowing every single part of the business," Gnazzo said.

Then again, it's not as easy as it looks.

After all, the responsibilities that each student has to take on in order to be prepared for Saturday's market require a lot of planning.

"Every Monday before [six p.m.] we have to turn in the order forms for the eggs, chicken, all dairy products and bread," UCHS senior Raymond Green said.

The students spend the rest of the week maintaining the flowers and vegetables that are grown in the garden and greenhouse near their high school.

"After school we get ready in the garden and start planting," UCHS sophomore Lakiesha Alexander explained. "On Thursday we go to the greenhouse and get all of the plants ready."

Of course, there are other things -- including customer service and marketing techniques -- that the students are always working to improve as well.

"We want to make better signs and make the market better known," Alexander said. "You get to know the [customers] better and explain where the plants are from... so they're interested in buying them."

In the long run, the both students and the program organizers think what can be learned through running the Farmer's Market can be applied to a much wider context.

"I think this can help me out in the future because when I go to college I want to become a horticulturalist," Green said. "I can use that major and start my own business -- maybe own a plant store or work in a lab."

Alexander said that the people skills that she has acquired will help her as well.

"I've gotten to learn how to work with people -- I can use these skills for when I want to communicate with people."

UNI Co-Director Danny Gerber (CAS '96) said that the lessons that the students are learning will allow the students to develop a much broader perspective as well.

"I think they're proud of the whole concept of doing well by doing good," Gerber said. "They're doing well in their job and they're making money, but they're also doing good for their community."

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