Seeding Youth Success

Roots
for the Home Team
operates on the radical idea that every young person deserves opportunities to see and create the future they want. Through nourishing salads, challenging studies, and real-life work, teens find the tools to launch, with confidence, into the next levels of life.

Read More About How Roots Works
Plant

Unique opportunities spark curiosity.

ROOTS partners with our local communities to cultivate fresh ideas and collaborate with teens hungry for new opportunities in life. Upon entering the program, ROOTS youth quickly discover curiosity about their future and what new possibilities exist.

Grow

Local chefs, fun salads and new experiences grow courage and skill.

Teens are mentored by professionals and celebrity chefs. They learn valuable job skills creating and selling salads, participate in a robust college-level curriculum to grow from youth to young leaders, and are empowered to make choices that build a life based upon their values.

Bloom

ROOTS graduates find tools and a new vision for the future.

Every ROOTS graduate goes on to further their own visions for a beautiful future, and each leaves a mark on our program. These experiences are about more than salads and ballgames – they’re about having the tools to dream big and make it happen.

Now at Target Field & Allianz Field
Look for SaladUP! Concession Carts on game day.

In addition to the thrill of creating salad recipes, participants also operate SaladUP! Concession Carts at Target Field and Allianz Field during baseball and soccer seasons.

Check out our Season Line-Up

What's New

Finding fresh ways to share scrumptious salads

There is always room for innovation and new possibilities: two things Roots for the Home Team knows well. This season brings more opportunities to keep on innovating. ROOTS youth are incredibly active in the community. Support our young leaders at these upcoming events.

See our season lineup

Salad Creation Day

It’s the start of something BIG!

Recipe day is the culmination of the youths’ hard work growing vegetables, and the creative collaborative excitement that comes from teaming up with our celebrity chef mentors. Together they create memorable, meaningful, delicious salads.

See our Latest Salads

Sharing Salads

Salads for the community.

Besides selling salads at our beloved Target Field SaladUP stand, ROOTS youth are finding ways to get their hearty salads into the hands of those who need it most: frontline workers and neighbors needing nourishment.

Read the Stories
Youth Spotlight

Meet Michael

He found his ROOTS, and we found a great team member.

Read Michael’s Story
Salad Creations

Youth-created and chef-mentored salads and recipes.

Remarkable chefs from the vibrant Twin Cities dining community work closely with students to mentor them through writing recipes and creating flavor-packed salads.

salad recipes

University-led Curriculum

"Finding Your Roots" college-level classwork challenges youths' perceptions of what is possible for their future, and offers tools to build those dreams.

ROOTS curriculum focuses on asking the questions that lead curious minds on important paths, questions like: What do I want to struggle for? Are the choices I make living the values I want? These questions open up new, never before seen, or considered, possibilities.

Who you are emerges from what you do. Energy comes through this exploration and the relentless pursuit of a better understanding of oneself. Finding insight into who you are, comes from doing–not sitting, thinking or reflecting on limited experiences. A great life must be lived. ROOTS provides key questions to envision the specifics of that life and tools to help achieve it.

Read more about our Impact

See you at the ballpark!

30

"Finding Your Roots" participants every year.

89%

of participants gained decision-making skills around their future.

96%

of participants gained skills in understanding of self & working in groups.

12,400+

youth salads prepared and served to the community this summer.

Get Involved with Roots

Step up to the plate and become a ROOTS Youth, Supporter or Mentor.

Become a Roots Food Partner or Program Sponsor

Are you an Urban Farm or food supplier? Are you a retail business interested in selling ROOTS salads? Would you like to serve Roots salads at your next event?

Let's Talk

Volunteer as a Youth Mentor or Chef Coach

Would you join one of our workshops to discuss your professional career experience and pathway? Are you a chef who would share your talent by guiding ROOTS youth as they create their salad recipes?

Volunteer

Donate

Simply put, money makes many experiences more attainable. Roots for the Home Team does everything in its power to clear pathways to success for our youth. Will you join our team to make these bright futures all the easier to reach?

Donate Now

Become a ROOTS Youth

All Roots for the Home Team participants connect with our organization through Minneapolis and St. Paul urban farms. Are you a teen interested in joining Roots for the Home Team? Check out our youth Garden Program partners.

Community Garden Partners