Cass Community Social Services is launching a hydroponic farming and education program that will provide Detroit area residents and restaurants with fresh produce year-round.

Located on its "tiny homes" campus in Detroit, the garden will be housed in a 40-foot shipping container.

The freight container will be equipped with LED lighting, powered, in part by solar panels, to enable seeds to sprout and vegetables to grow. Hundreds of vertical planters will house produce that will be fed by captured rainwater infused with nutrients. The container will have the growing capacity of up to 2 acres of land and produce up to 52 harvests per year, yielding several tons of produce.

Produce from the Ford Mobile Farm will help feed the hungry at the Cass Community kitchen and also be sold to area restaurants to create an income stream to help support the freight farm.

On the educational side, Cass will also take a demonstration garden, planted in the back of a Ford F-150 pickup truck, to local schools, joined by the members of Ford Motor Co.'s Thirty Under 30 team, who conceived the program, and other Ford volunteers.

The garden will help students understand how produce is grown, with lessons on nutrition and farming, and give them an opportunity to put their hands in the dirt.

Beyond providing another source of fresh produce for those in need, the new program "gives us the opportunity to teach people in our city how to create their own gardens that will give them better nutrition and be more cost-effective," the Rev. Faith Fowler, executive director of Cass Community Social Services, said in a news release.

The Ford Mobile Farm is the second program in as many months with a plan to take nutrition education into local schools.

Boulder, Colo.-based Big Green, a national nonprofit run by the brother of serial entrepreneur Elon Musk, in January said it plans to bring food education and outdoor learning garden classrooms to more than 100 metro Detroit schools as part of a $5 million plan to connect the city's youth to real food.

Tackling systemic problems like hunger and malnutrition are among the Ford Motor Co. Fund's key objectives, President Jim Vella said in the release.

The pilot Ford Mobile Farm program has the promise to help solve a stubborn issue that affects not only residents of Detroit, but people across the globe, he said.

The idea for the two-pronged program came from a participant in Ford's Thirty Under 30 program challenged last year to improve the Ford Mobile Food Pantries, which launched in 2008.

A $250,000 grant through the Bill Ford Better World Challenge grant program funded by Ford Motor Co. and personal support from the carmaker's executive chairman, Bill Ford Jr., is providing seed funding for the mobile and stationary gardens and the educational arm of the program.

The mobile farm was one of two local projects conceived by Ford's twentysomething employees to help improve local food systems.

A Thirty Under 30 proposal focused on Fishes and Loaves Pantry in Taylor garnered a $10,000 grant from Ford Motor Co. Fund to set up a management tool that uses barcode technology, as well as a volunteer management system.

The Thirty Under 30 program takes younger, salaried workers from Ford sites across the country and puts them through a yearlong leadership course where they learn about philanthropy and nonprofits while studying social issues. Bill Ford launched the program in 2016 to help foster the next generation of community-minded employees.

Last year the course looked at hunger and food insecurity. This year's class will look at housing and homelessness, said Todd Nissen, a Ford spokesman.