Summer Green Team

While Green Team only operates in the summer, you can learn more about our programming on our blog and monthly newsletter.

The Summer Green Team is a free program hosted at CitySprouts garden sites across Boston and Cambridge each year. It is designed for middle-grade students and provides opportunities to learn gardening, cooking, and leadership skills while working and spending time outdoors. Youth learn to be leaders and stewards in their community through a combination of garden work, STEAM-focused projects, and field trips to green spaces within their community. By working on local urban gardens and meeting with community leaders, the program aims to provide youth the opportunity to identify issues they are passionate about and envision an endless array of possibilities for their future

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Unfortunately our Summer Green Team is for rising 5th - 8th graders only. Youth entering 9th grade are not eligible for the program. However, there are many other options for youth entering high school to continue to engage in urban gardening and farming! The Food Project's Seed Crew  and Urban Farm Institute's Young Farmers Project are Boston-area organizations that run summer internships for high school youth. Youth specifically entering CRLS in Cambridge are also eligible for the Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program (MSYEP), which CitySprouts and many other Cambridge nonprofits partner with every year to hire on high-school interns.

  • The program is FREE!

  • We review applications on a rolling basis beginning on April 1. If your youth is accepted into the program you will receive an email asking you to confirm the details of your application. A youth will not be registered for the program until you confirm their intent to attend. This helps us ensure that we are able to fill all the slots we have available.

  • Youth will receive a stipend for their work caring for CitySprouts garden provided they meet attendance and participation requirements.

  • While gardening is a big focus of the program, Green Team groups do a wide variety of activities every day. We take extra care to work in the garden in the mornings when temperatures are lowest, and all staff are trained to identify and treat any symptoms of heat exhaustion. We have classrooms reserved inside to escape the heat and will have crafts, experiments, and cooking activities that all relate back to the garden.

  • As a tuition-free program the Green Team holds a strict 75% attendance policy to ensure the youth involved participate fully. If you have concerns about your ability to meet that attendance policy please reach out directly to Alex Frank at afrank@citysprouts.org. Failure to meet the attendance policy may result in removal from the program and forfeiture of the stipend.

  • The Green Team partners with Food Services at Cambridge and Boston Public Schools, so the meals are determined by them. If you have dietary restrictions or concerns please be sure to inform us ahead of time so we can make arrangements to ensure your youth’s needs are met.

  • Field trips vary year-to-year. We take extra care to ensure that our trips focus on learning about and connecting with green spaces and communities throughout Boston and Cambridge. To get an idea about what kinds of trips we go on, check out last year’s summer recap.

  • CitySprouts runs three separate sites, two in Cambridge, and one through Boston Public Schools Fifth Quarter Program. Local youth may apply to our Cambridge sites, with priority given to Cambridge residents. ONLY Boston Public School students may apply to our Boston program.