Supporting Food Sovereignty through Garden Education and Capacity Building in San Jose
Overview
Valley Verde is dedicated to building healthy and resilient communities by providing low-income families educational programs, edible gardens, and micro-entrepreneurship opportunities that create food security and lead to self-sufficiency. We accomplish this in our Shared Garden Program where we provide home garden supplies, monthly gardening workshops, mentorship, and garden visits to address the needs of food access and food insecurity in the community.
About the Fellowship
Valley Verde is seeking a fellow to support one of the following projects:
Homeland Nursery
We grow over 80 different types of seedlings not commonly found in grocery stores (okra, bittermelon, heirloom corn, hot habanero pepper, etc). Our Homeland Nursery is open to the public to support community members in growing their own culturally-relevant foods that are important to their recipes and traditions. Our goal is for the nursery to generate enough revenue to allow us to become self-sufficient. To help generate profit, a fellow would help us establish a strong, repeat customer base through marketing and outreach. Another, smaller, program to support operations sustainability is the Super Sprouts kits, a gardening kit and online curriculum for children to learn how to grow seedlings at home. The fellow would help us in reaching out to schools, libraries, etc to promote the Super Sprout kits.
Translating program curriculum
Currently curriculum has been developed for all programs and most of it has already been translated into Spanish. We aim to continue translating program materials into Spanish as well as expand into Vietnamese. This effort is integral to our strategy of including and empowering families to engage in their own food sovereignty.
Volunteer program development + Sow & Grow Community Day
Valley Verde’s Sow & Grow Community Day occurs every 2nd Saturday of the month and is a day where we combine a Community Workshop day and a Volunteer day. This is a newer program that we are still developing. We currently have a list of organizations that we would like to invite to join/host these workshops as guest speakers. The fellow would assist us in contacting these organizations and coordinating their attendance at our Sow & Grow Community Days. The fellow would additionally help us to generate ideas on topics to host during our Community Workshops, and aid in the facilitation of some of the Sow & Grow Community Days.
Decreasing food waste in San Jose by becoming a Composting Hub
Valley Verde has initiated a composting program that collects food scraps to process and redistribute as finished compost, teaches composting skills and provides a resource for families that lack space to compost at home. Our effort will support ecologically sustainable food systems by mitigating food waste from entering landfills, supplying nutrients for productive home gardens, and engaging the community in the process. The fellow will help continue our communications campaign to promote our Compost Hub and improve data collection methods, as well as network with other local compost hubs in the area to provide more resources to our community. For the Compost Hub, we are also working on developing a system for drying worm castings from our vermicompost bins, and incorporating biochar into our compost to improve its quality.
Valley Verde is seeking a fellow passionate about food security, sustainability, community engagement, and education for Summer 2025 in support of our goals.
Preferred qualifications:
- Experience working in a multiethnic community environment and have multicultural literacy.
- Ability to develop professional relationships with program participants regardless of language barriers, cultural differences, or physical/mental abilities.
- Knowledge of gardening, food justice, and environmental topics.
- Written and verbal skills in Spanish or Vietnamese if possible.
- Skills in grassroots marketing, curriculum development, and community engagement.
Stipend
Undergraduate Cardinal Quarter Fellows receive a base stipend of $8,000 (which includes a $500 cost of living adjustment for the Bay Area) to support living expenses during the 10-week fellowship. Financial aid and supplemental funding ($1,000-$1,500 additional) may be available to students who qualify (learn more here).
Students in a 2-year Masters program will receive a stipend of $9,500. Students who have begun their coterm programs (i.e. paying graduate tuition) will also receive a stipend of $9,500.
Please note that students can apply for no more than three different PCJ fellowship opportunities during a single application round.
This is a full-time (35-40 hours/week), 10-week opportunity during Summer 2025, starting no later than July 7, 2025. All fellows are required to work with their community partners for ten consecutive weeks.
Undergraduate, co-term and Masters students from all academic disciplines are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to students who have completed fewer than two previous Cardinal Quarter opportunities.
Graduating seniors are only eligible to apply during Round 2 (early April) if funding is available and positions are still open. Please note graduating seniors are not eligible for financial aid supplemental funding. Please review our program policies for complete eligibility requirements.
In order to be eligible for a Haas Center-sponsored Cardinal Quarter summer opportunity, undergraduate students are required to be enrolled in both the winter and spring quarters.
Students are required to be in good academic standing. The requirements for good academic standing include: 1) Earn at least 9 units of credit in a single quarter. 2) Earn at least 36 units over the most recent three quarters 3) Maintain a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 or above.
Additional Fellowship Requirements
This opportunity is associated with Partnerships for Climate Justice in the Bay Area (PCJ in the Bay), an initiative to build equitable climate change solutions by supporting partnerships between Stanford students, faculty and Bay Area community leaders. Fellows will be a part of a cohort of other PCJ in the Bay summer fellows placed at sites across the Bay Area.
Additional requirements include
Spring 2025:
- Complete an online program orientation.
- Participate in an in-person Engaging in Ethical and Effective Service workshop at the Haas Center.
- Identify and meet with an academic mentor (Stanford faculty or staff) at least once.
- Design a personal learning plan and share the learning plan with your site supervisor and academic mentor.
- Complete all required pre-orientation forms.
- Attend the spring retreat with cohort peers (date TBD).
Summer 2025:
- Complete a pre-program assessment survey.
- Attend all PCJ in the Bay Fellows cohort activities (more information will be shared about these events in spring quarter).
- Submit a final report documenting your work and reflecting on your learning.
- Correspond with fellowship donor(s) as requested by fellowships program staff.
- Complete a post-program assessment survey.
Fall 2025:
- Meet with your academic mentor to discuss your fellowship experience at least once.
- Participate in outreach activities to share the experience and help publicize the program.
Frequently Asked Questions for PCJ Summer 2025 Fellowships.
Selection Process
Complete applications are screened, finalists interviewed, and fellows selected by the host organizations staff with the intention to award fellowships prior to spring break. Applicants should respond promptly (within 48 hours) via email to a fellowship offer, or the offer will be rescinded. Once an applicant accepts a fellowship offer, the student should promptly notify all other Stanford and non-Stanford programs to which they have applied that they have accepted another offer and to withdraw their candidacy.
