Opportunities for Teen Community Service

Teens feeding their neighbors! 

Everyone deserves fresh, healthy food, yet food pantries that serve the South Shore of Boston are routinely stocked with very unhealthy options.  The F2FP program at Holly Hill Farm aims to change that via teen volunteers who plant, grow and deliver organic vegetables and herbs to three food pantries in Cohasset, Hull and Quincy, MA.

The program enables students to fulfill their school-mandated community service hours with wholesome, hands-on work on the farm.  The teen volunteers are able to participate in feeding some of the more vulnerable members of their community,  participating in every aspect of the project, from seed to harvest.

High school students who join the program participate during the growing season, starting with building beds and planting seeds in the Spring straight through to harvesting and putting the gardens to bed in Fall. Participants tend gardens at 'food pantry gardens' at Holly Hill Farm and at  Wellspring, a community center in Hull which provides food and services to those facing hardship.   The teens activities include planting, composting, cultivating, harvesting, cleaning and prepping vegetables, and finally, delivering the organic produce to three grateful food pantries. 

Teens restoring conservation land!

Holly Hill Farm is situated on 140 acres of stunning conservation land with diverse habitat for migrating songbirds, hawks and owls, grey and red foxes, fisher cats, and other wildlife.  It is home to one of the South Shore's best remaining stands of endangered spring ephemeral wildflowers and other native plants that are disappearing elsewhere in our region.

Teens involved in this program help to remove invasive plants that threaten our land and the wildlife that depend upon it, and to aid in the reintroduction of native plants.    They work in a completely hands-on way to help increase biodiversity in this important refuge.

It's hard work, but extremely important and  fulfilling especially given the pace of development in our region in recent years.