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Nicole Hill

 

 

TEEG 

joins food 

justice youth

corp

N. GROSVENORDALE —  TEEG recently joined with the Connecticut Food Justice Youth Corp, a statewide AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) project. With a mission to engage and empower youth within issues of food insecurity and food justice, the Connecticut Food Justice Youth Corp is a network of seven nonprofits.

By participating in the CT Food Justice Youth Corps VISTA project, TEEG will host one VISTA Member who will help build administrative, organizational, and financial capacity for TEEG’s youth leadership programming.

TEEG will have Nicolle Hill, a northeastern Connecticut native, and recent Eastern Connecticut State University graduate, join the agency for her AmeriCorp year of service. Nicolle will be assisting in further development of our Youth Advisory Board and bringing the resources provided by the Connecticut Food Justice Youth Corp to TEEG and the Northeast community.  This fall she will be helping with the community placement of raised-bed planters, help with organizing students and volunteers for the Homeless Awareness events in October, and attending state and local Food Policy Council meetings and the annual CT Food Bank Conference.

Donna Grant, TEEG executive director, said, “We are thrilled to have Nicolle with us at TEEG. Growing up through 4-H, she has been engaged as a youth leader in bringing about positive community change for many years. Her commitment to educating young leaders on these important issues insures a new generation of community stewards working to insure social justice.”

Carl Asikainen, TEEG’s Food Systems manager, said, “With September being Hunger Awareness Month, this is the perfect time to announce TEEG’s affiliation with the Connecticut Food Justice Youth Corps. We are excited to have Nicolle hit the ground running, working to engage our area youth on this important topic.”

Jiff Martin, coordinator of the CT Food Justice Youth Corp and Director of Sustainable Food Systems at UConn Extension, said, “As a statewide collaborative, we are so excited by the addition of TEEG since they bring unique experience and credibility as an emergency food and services provider in northeastern Connecticut. The communities represented in our project are fairly diverse, so we are excited by the ability to bring organizations and their youth from rural and urban communities together in the food justice movement.”

The Food Justice Youth Corp is a network of seven nonprofits: CitySeed, New Haven; Fresh New London; Hartford Food System; GROW Windham; Greater Hartford YMCA; the Institute for Community Research, Hartford; North End Action Team, Middletown; and TEEG, Thompson. The Corps is supported statewide by the Corporation for National and Community Service, and led by UConn Extension.  The program goal is to develop the next generation of leaders, role models and community activists changing the way their own community looks at food and food security.

The AmeriCorps VISTA program, founded in 1965 as the Volunteers in Service to America program, is a national service program to fight poverty in America.  AmeriCorp VISTA members are individuals, of all ages, who commit to a year of service within nonprofits and public agencies around the country. 

For more information on the CT Food Justice Youth Corp visit www.teegonline.org/education-support/youth-council or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CTFJC.