Skyler Hawkins, second from left, the market garden program manager at Urban Roots works with interns sorting tomatoes before they are put in 40 CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) boxes in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Jabyrie Earley, an intern at Urban Roots in St. Paul sprays down the roots of black radishes before they are submerged in a water wash Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salds to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

David Woods, second from right, the conservation program director works with interns in making sure all the bees are off the frame before transporting it to the honey room at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salds to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Chula Ali, center, an intern at Urban Roots extracts honey in a frame held by David Woods in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Interns arrange black icicle, carbon, beef steak and chef's choice tomatoes before tomato tasting at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)



Before a tomato tasting, interns put balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper on black icicle, carbon, beef steak and chef's choice tomatoes at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Interns get ready for tomato tasting at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Essance Negron, a first-year intern at Urban Roots in St. Paul eats a slice of a tomato during a tomato testing Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

After preparing a bed, Cecilia Rodriguez, left, listens to Skyler Hawkins talk about how to plant and space pak choi at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

While preparing a bed for Pac Choi, Cecilia Rodriguez discovers a toad at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)



From left, Cecilia Rodriguez, Zarea Mobley, and Moudjibou Bolarinwa harvest mint at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Marcos Giossi, the seasonal supervisor at Urban Roots in St. Paul hangs coriander up to dry Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

An intern picks a pepper from a box filled with mostly sweet chocolate peppers while filling a CSA box at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Milkweed and other butterfly-friendly plants line one side of the garden at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019, is celebrating their 50th anniversary. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)



From left, interns Sadie Sounthala, Jennifer Pena, Mariana Urbina and Jabyrie Earley tie up coriander before it is hung up to dry at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

An intern waits for honey to come out of a honey extractor machine at Urban Roots in St. Paul Thursday, Aug. 29, 2019. The youth organization on the East Side teaches kids to garden and also make salads to sell at Twins games. They also do a lot with conservation. It's their 50th anniversary. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

One group of teens is suiting up in bright white suits with mesh hoods zipped tight to keep out the bees. They’re about to harvest honey.

Another few are expertly picking yellowed leaves from giant black radishes, then rubber-banding them into bundles for sale at a farmers’ market.

Still more kids are spreading dirt in a garden patch that has recently been harvested, prepping it to plant greens that will grow fast enough to harvest before the frost.

All of this is smack dab in the middle of the city, behind a building you probably haven’t noticed just off East Seventh Street on St. Paul’s East Side.

They are all Urban Roots interns, and their paid job in the summer is to garden or cook or pull invasive species from parks. They learn all these skills and more as part of an organization that began 50 years ago and has evolved into a food-centric youth empowerment program.

“What keeps me coming back is the relationships here,” said Tajah Tempest, 19, who worked as an intern for three years before being hired on staff as a side job while she attends St. Paul College. “Everyone feels like family, and it feels like I’m a part of something big. Plus, I’ve learned so much about networking and other skills.”

So many of the Urban Roots teens come back year after year, the older ones mentoring the younger ones, all of them learning together about growing and cooking food, caring for the environment and even things like how to apply for college or get another job.

The organization was known as the Community Design Center in 1969, when it was founded to address community development issues like architecture, urban planning and affordable housing. Youth programs were created in 1997, and in 2013, the organization decided to change its name to Urban Roots and focus entirely on its youth programs.

Interns — there are about 60 of them every year — are funneled into three categories: Cook Fresh, Conservation Crew and Market Garden.

Cook Fresh teens learn about the food grown in the program’s gardens, spread out over city lots and commercial properties, and how to cook it. They work with local chefs like Union Kitchen’s Yia Vang to cook lunches, they help teach community cooking classes, and they even learn how to preserve a harvest for use all year round.

Essance Negron, 15, is in her first year with Urban Roots, and she’s proud of being selected as “Rookie of the Year.”

Negron said she was initially drawn in by the promise of cooking, but now volunteers for extra gardening shifts.

“It’s exceeded my expectations,” she said. “I’ve learned knife skills, how long to cook things, the five taste centers (sweet, sour, salt, bitter, umami, she proudly rattled off), but being in the garden makes me appreciate the food more.”

Cook Fresh program manager Saba Andualem said that some interns, who get to take home produce grown on Urban Roots soil, were having a hard time incorporating certain unfamiliar vegetables into their families’ cultural dishes. So they decided to tweak some dishes, creating recipes that would show the families how to incorporate even more vegetables into their family meals.

Last year, they demonstrated cooking a Somali dish that they had created for 300 people at the Minnesota State Fair.

Interns with the Cook Fresh group also help make salads with nonprofit Roots for the Home Team and sell them at Twins’ games.

Market Garden teens help grow the food, but beyond that they learn how to pick out the best produce and package it for use in Community Supported Agriculture shares and to sell at the Mill City Farmers’ Market.

“We say they’re there from seed to sale,” said Marketing and Events Director Summer Badawi. “They are learning every step.”

Urban Roots has gardens at a church, an assisted living center, on a city lot, at an office site and most recently, an ambitious project that includes a high tunnel, or unheated greenhouse, and a fruit orchard at Rivoli Bluff, an affordable housing development on the East Side.

Finally, the Conservation Crew pulls invasive species from local parks, but also helps grow plants to take the place of that buckthorn and garlic mustard.

They also help keep hives of bees on several properties, and harvest the honey for use in cooking.

Conservation Crew members ride their bikes to and from the sites they work at, logging an impressive 800 miles a year.

The program goes beyond day-to-day tasks, too. Interns are taken on college visits. They’re given career training — for example, Badawi has taken one of the former crew members under her wing as a marketing intern.

Ninety percent of program participants go to college.

Badawi, who has been with the program for seven years, said the program teaches young people to network, to foster relationships with adults who aren’t their family, and also to think about entrepreneurship.

In addition, it’s just a great first job.

“If you work at a store and you mess up, you’re gone,” Badawi said. “There’s no one encouraging you and showing you the right way. That’s what we do.”

FYI

To celebrate its 50th year, Urban Roots is throwing a big party on Sept. 12 at Paikka Event Center in St. Paul. Chef Yia Vang will be cooking up some of the group’s finest produce, Sweet Science Ice Cream will serve the sweet treats, and beverages will come from Bang Brewing, Du Nord Craft Spirits and Solo Vino. Tickets are $100 apiece, and of course all proceeds benefit Urban Roots.

For more information about the party or Urban Roots in general, go to the group’s website at urbanrootsmn.org. There’s a link to buy tickets there, too.