HAYville this Fall

What is HAYville – HAYville (Harvesting Agricultural Youth) is a food and farming program for 12-19 year olds in Caledon, brought to you by Eat Local Caledon and the Albion Hills Community Farm. Through this program, participants will gain insight, knowledge and skills towards a potential future food and farming career.  Activities and workshops involve farming, cooking and preserving (value-adding), community engagement, marketing, business planning and more.

HAYville this Fall – As part of the HAYville program, there will be a variety of Ag-Venture workshops and events taking place from now until early December.  To register for these events, please send an email to [email protected].  The majority of the events are free and are also eligible for Secondary School Community Service Hours.

Learn to Sell Series:

Saturday, October 1st, Belfountain Salamander Festival, Village of Belfountain, any time between 9am-2pm.  Learn to sell farm and value-add products at a community festival. Join us at the HAYville booth and gain experience selling farm-fresh and homemade products to festival patrons.

Wednesday September 28 and Oct 5th at the Inglewood Farmers’ Market between 3:30 and 7 pm.  Thursday September 29th and October 6 between 3 and 7 pm at the Caledon Farmers’ Markets.  Learn to sell products at the farmers’ markets. Join the Eat Local Caledon and the Albion Hills Community Farm Booth at the market and gain experience selling farm-fresh and homemade products.

How to Workshop Series:

Sunday, October 2nd, 1pm-4pm, Cold-Frame Construction, Albion Hills Community Farm, 16555 Humber Station Rd. Learn to construct a cold-frame and grow winter greens year-round. At this farm workshop, participants will gain hands-on experience in constructing a cold-frame structure and planting seedlings for winter greens.  A great business idea!

Saturday, October 15th, 1pm-4pm, Albion Hills Community Farm, 16555 Humber Station Rd.  Learn to build a simple “root cellar”/winter storage system. At this farm workshop, participants will gain hands-on experience in building a simple and versatile winter storage system for root vegetables and squashes.  Winter storage is a must for every year-round farm business, and comes in handy for every household that lacks a root cellar!

Sunday, November 6th, 1:30pm-4pm, Palgrave Community Kitchen, 34 Pine Ave., Palgrave.  Learn to cook with pumpkins. Halloween is over, but what about all those leftover pumpkins?  Well we don’t want them to go to waste, so instead, we are having a pumpkin cooking extravaganza.  Learn how to make pumpkin puree, soup, hummus & bread, and even how to perfect roasted pumpkin seeds.

Youth Entrepreneurship:

Wednesday, October 12th, 5:30pm-8pm, Small Business Enterprise Centre, 18 King St. East.  Youth Entrepreneurship –Part 1: Introduction. In this workshop, led by the Small Business Enterprise Centre and Eat Local Caledon, participants will learn the fundamentals about starting their own business and creating a business plan.

Wednesday, October 19th, 6:30pm-9pm, Spirit Tree Estate Cidery, 1137 Boston Mills Road.  Youth Entrepreneurship – Part 2: Food & Farming Entrepreneurship in Action. Participants will take a tour of Spirit Tree Estate Cidery and learn about what it takes to start and operate an innovative food and farming business.  We will also hear brief presentations from other youths that are small-business owners.

Saturday, October 22nd, 9am and Sunday, October 23rd, 11am, Albion Hills Community Farm, 16555 Humber Station Rd.  HAYville Ag-Venture Weekend. During this Ag-Venture weekend, participants will gain hands-on farming and cooking experience and even take part in HAYville’s very own Food & Farming Dragon’s Den.