This is an exciting new role at Food Literacy Center as we have just opened our cooking school and 1-acre student farm next to Leataata Floyd Elementary School. The Urban Farm Manager role is a hands-on, get your hands dirty (literally!) role designed to keep our farm site operational for student and community programs. This role reports directly to the Operations Manager.
This role is an exciting opportunity for a results-oriented and thorough professional with a passion for inspiring kids to eat their vegetables and a love of animals.
Here’s what you’ll do as the Urban Farm Manager:
-Project manage the build of the farm to implementation.
-Understand the CEO’s dream and vision of the farm and work with contractors, volunteers, and your own hands to make it come to life.
-Work with landscape architects and recruit pro-bono support to build out all aspects of the farm.
-Coordinate with the city, school district, and other relevant stakeholders to ensure appropriate compliance.
-Work with the development team to ensure appropriate recognition of sponsorships.
-Oversee plantings, animal care, construction of fencing and other farm needs,, irrigation, and maintenance of the farm site.
-Design a kid-friendly garden in every aspect of design, implementation and final product.
-Provide day-to-day support for all farm management, logistics, and operations.
-Coordinate with program staff to ensure appropriate production schedule and availability for upcoming cooking and garden class schedules.
-Track all supplies needed and related expenses, following grant guidelines.
-Handle cleaning, food preparation, hauling supplies, and other physical labor.
-Assist with the farm curriculum in partnership with the Program Manager.
-Maintain farm so that students and community members are able to grow, harvest and taste local produce.
-Maintain the farm, provide repairs, regular pruning, overall organization, orderliness, cleanliness, and overall health of the farm and farm animals.
-Proactively seek ways to improve the farm to provide best-in-class experiences to
students, volunteers, and community members.
-Oversee volunteer work days, including planning work schedules, prep, and logistics.
-Assist with fundraising to keep the farm funded, including online campaigns, grants and grant reporting.
-Assist with direct program support as needed.
-Provide training of garden educators, volunteers, and staff to ensure high quality education and experiences.
-Assist with student education and cooking school instruction.
-Provide garden education to students and community members.
-Other duties as needed.
Achievement-orientation:
-Demonstrates an ability to meet and exceed goals and expectations. Lives up to the high standard the community expects of our nonprofit, showing attention to detail. Identifies problems and seeks to solve them quickly. Strategizes ideas for program improvement and communicates ideas effectively with supervisor.
Problem Solving & Decision-Making:
-Demonstrates a strong ability to recognize problems, solve them quickly, and appropriately message changes. Make decisions that consider all stakeholders, and act accordingly.
-Displays comfort with ambiguity but has a strong bias for structure and results. Flexibility, resilience and perseverance when faced with obstacles and competing deadlines with limited resources. Shows sound and thoughtful decision-making ability.
Project Management:
-Demonstrates a strong ability to balance multiple competing priorities daily. Demonstrates an ability to prioritize, and take action accordingly.
Innovative Thinking:
-Demonstrates an ability to create processes and systems to streamline internal operations. Demonstrates a high level of comfort with ambiguity, and an ability to create order. Demonstrates an aptitude for framing problems as opportunities, and always pushing to further streamline.
Positive Attitude:
-Exudes a positive outlook and attitude, especially during stressful or difficult times. Helps maintain the joyfulness of the Food Literacy Center culture.
You’ll be successful in this position if you:
-Have a deep commitment to the mission of Food Literacy Center
-Have a passion for and experience working with children.
-Have 5-10 years of farming experience planning, planting, and growing food and trees.
-Are highly motivated, able to self-manage, flexible, able to multitask, and maintain the confidentiality of sensitive information
-Reflect our team’s values and behaviors
-High degree of comfort with change and ambiguity
-Have an understanding or familiarity with local food, food systems, and nutrition.
-Comfortable working with animals, including daily feeding, watering, waste management, etc.,
-Have a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience
Extra points if you
-Have experience working in a small, entrepreneurial, growing team
-Have experience working with food literacy
-Have experience working with nonprofits
-Have basic cooking skills. (Home cooking is OK!)
-Speak Spanish or Hmong
Please submit a resume and thoughtful cover letter to amber@foodliteracycenter.org, subject: Urban Farm Manager. In your letter, please describe the most important lesson you have learned as a farmer--and tell us why it’s made you a stronger farmer. This position will remain open until filled. No phone calls, please.