Youth Agriculture & Entrepreneurship Program | Root Life
Skip to the program
Root Life Apply

Paid program · 333 Valley Street — “The Shack”

Paid to Learn. Rooted to Lead.

Training New Haven’s next generation of growers, food entrepreneurs, market workers and land stewards.

At 333 Valley Street — “The Shack” — Root Life operates a paid, hands-on youth agriculture and entrepreneurship program. Young people earn wages while developing practical skills in food production, environmental stewardship, market operations, value-added products and community-based business.

Participants are not treated as spectators. They seed, grow, harvest, compost, package, serve customers, test ideas and learn how food moves from soil to market. The program builds real pathways into agriculture, green jobs, food businesses and entrepreneurship for young people in New Haven — particularly youth from underserved communities and Afro-Indigenous youth.

Seven ways in

Each one is its own form. We never pour youth applications, sponsorships and partnership requests into the same inbox funnel.

Photographs on this page are real Root Life images. Every photograph showing an identifiable young person publishes only with a signed guardian release on file.

Real wages, always Supervised, age-appropriate work Skills you can sell School comes first Media consent optional

Seven learning areas

Every participant works across all seven over a season. Nobody spends the summer on one task.

{{ a.imgAlt }}
{{ a.n }}

{{ a.title }}

{{ a.blurb }}

  • {{ s }}
    •

Take to a job {{ a.takeaway }}

{{ a.guard }}

From the form to the first paycheck

Six steps, in order. Nothing about starting here should be a mystery to a sixteen-year-old or to the adult reading over their shoulder.

  1. {{ p.title }}

    {{ p.body }}

    {{ p.when }}

    2.

Paid, plainly

What “paid” actually means here

“Real wages” is an easy thing to print on a page. These are the parts you can hold us to.

{{ p.title }}

{{ p.body }}

Exact rates, hour caps and season dates live in the CMS and are confirmed in each participant’s written offer. This page does not publish a number Root Life has not approved.

What we believe, and how it shows up in the work

These are not posters on a wall. Each one changes something about how the program is run.

{{ v.belief }}

{{ v.practice }}

Where the program leads

A paid season at The Shack is the entry point, not the ceiling. Tap a stage to see what it holds.

{{ s.name }}

{{ stKicker }}

{{ stStatus }}

{{ stTitle }}

{{ stBody }}

{{ f }}

The guardrail

{{ stGuardrail }}

Safety, consent and privacy — stated plainly

For guardians reading this before their young person does: here is exactly how the program is run.

On site

  • {{ s }}
    •

Media, names and privacy

  • {{ p }}
    •

Native Praxis may document parts of the program. Documentation is never automatic — it requires its own signed consent, and declining changes nothing about a young person’s place in the program.

Three separate doors

A young person applying, an organization partnering and a sponsor funding a position need different questions. {{ appStatusNote }}

{{ t.label }}

Sponsoring

{{ sponsorPickedTitle }}

Applications are taken in conversation

Not through a web form, and not because we are behind on building one. A young person’s application holds a guardian contact, an emergency contact and any access needs. That record lives in one table that only the program lead and the owner can open, behind a second authentication step, with every read logged. A form on a public page cannot honor that, so we do not pretend otherwise by collecting it here.

What the conversation covers

  • Your name, your age and the neighborhood you are coming from.
  • How you would rather be contacted — yours, not a guardian’s, unless you say so.
  • A guardian on the call for anyone under 18, before any start date is set.
  • What hours actually work, and whether bus fare needs arranging. Fare support is arranged, never means-tested.
Write to harvest@rootlife.ag

A name and a couple of times that suit you is enough to start. {{ appStatusNote }}

Or just raise your hand

If writing an email is the wrong shape today, leave a name and we will come to you when the next cohort forms. This is not an application and it holds nothing but what you type here.

I am a…

{{ rhErrorText }}

Hand raised, {{ rhFirstName }}.

The program lead will write when the next cohort forms — a real conversation, with a guardian included for anyone under 18. Nothing else is held: no age, no guardian contact, no emergency contact.

{{ formTitle }}

{{ formIntro }}

{{ f.note }}

{{ formFooter }}

{{ errorText }}

{{ s.title }}

{{ s.what }}

  • {{ c }}
    •

{{ s.amount }}

Sponsorship amounts are set by Root Life in the CMS and are not published until Dishaun Earl Harris enters final approved figures. Wages, materials and supervision costs are itemized in the sponsorship agreement — a sponsored position is a real job, funded end to end.

Sponsors never receive information about an individual young person — no names, no photographs, no progress reports. Reporting is on the position and the program.

{{ thanksTitle }}

{{ thanksBody }}

The season, told by the people in it

Four of these are now real Root Life photographs. The last two stay empty until the media and the words exist, consented and approved — we do not write youth quotes for youth.

{{ s.alt }}

{{ s.kind }}

{{ s.state }}

{{ s.title }}

{{ s.needs }}

Agriculture can be a profession, a business, a science, a craft — and a way to serve your own block.

If you are a young person in New Haven who wants to work with your hands and get paid for it, start here. If you are an adult who wants that to exist, fund a position or bring us to your students.

Apply for the youth program Sponsor a paid position