If you are interested in participaring in an acedemic internship,

please see our 2024 internship description below:

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Bellingham Urban Farming Internship

Center for Community Learning

 

The urban farming internship, hosted by the WWU Center for Community Learning, provides students the opportunity to engage with Bellingham’s food system through working an off-campus urban vegetable farm. This farming program is focused on increasing food access, cultivating community, and exploring learning and connection to place through agriculture.

 

*Opportunity for spring, summer, and fall quarter internships. Students may be interns for multiple quarters. If students want their internship to count for course credit within their academic program(s), they are responsible for finding a faculty supervisor and completing department requirements to earn credit. WWU Center for Community Learning staff will provide on-site supervision, support and education. 

Available for 1-5 credits per quarter. 1 credit= 3 hours a week. 

**This is not a paid internship.

 

Internship Description: 

Interns will work at City Sprouts Farm with a team of student employees, interns, and farm mentors. Interns will have a unique opportunity to participate in an urban farming and food access program, learn small-scale production farming skills, and engage with the community through food and agriculture!

Tasks will vary greatly throughout the season and will include greenhouse work, weeding, preparing vegetable beds for planting, seeding and transplanting crops, harvesting and packing produce, site maintenance and building projects, and visiting other local food and farming projects in Whatcom and Skagit County. 

We encourage applications from women, people of color, people with disabilities, veterans, and other candidates from underrepresented backgrounds and those with diverse experiences interested in this opportunity.   

 

Required qualifications: 

• Desire to learn all aspects of small scale farm systems  

• Organized, responsible, punctual

• Good communication and leadership skills 

• Excellent work ethic and positive attitude 

• Conscientious and able to work with all kinds of people  

• Ability to lift 25 pounds repeatedly

• Ability to navigate rough and uneven ground

• Ability to work outside in all weather conditions  

• Must have access to reliable transportation (bike or bus included) 

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About the Farm:

City Sprouts Farm builds community resilience by stewarding a productive farm space where people can come together to learn, increase food access, and demonstrate how community vitality can grow through our food system.  Our programming is embedded within Western Washington University's Center for Community Learning and we provide multiple entry points for students to engage in local food systems. We grow 1 acre of diversified vegetables using organic and ecological practices. Our primary goals are to grow nutritious produce that is accessible for our community, to cultivate soil health and biodiversity, and to create opportunities for student learning, engagement and belonging. 

 

About the community we are serving:

The Birchwood and Alderwood areas of Bellingham are impacted by food apartheid. Since the only grocery store in the area closed in 2016, the lack of access to fresh, affordable, culturally appropriate food has particularly impacted low income communities and communities of color. Since City Sprouts Farm began in 2018, we have worked to address this problem by getting fresh produce into the hands of our most food insecure neighbors.  The produce grown at City Sprouts Farm is free/affordable for the people who consume it. We will do this by providing produce to Sea Mar Community Health Center’s FARMacia free food stand, the Birchwood Food Desert Fighter’s free food share spot, through WWU Food Pantry Donations, and through our sliding scale CSA program. 

Students will have the opportunity to learn about food access first hand, and to network with other local organizations and groups working to create food justice and food sovereignty in the community. 

 

To Apply: 

Please send a resume and 2-3 paragraphs describing your learning goals and why you are interested in interning at City Sprouts Farm to Ellie Duncan at ellie.duncan@wwu.edu

 

 If students want their internship to count for course credit within their academic program(s), they are responsible for finding a faculty supervisor and completing department requirements to earn credit.