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.
Plant
Unique opportunities spark curiosity.
ROOTS partners with community gardens to cultivate fresh produce and collaborate with teens hungry for new opportunities in life. Upon entering the program, ROOTS youth quickly discover a 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.
Selling Salads at Target Field
Running the SaladUP! Concession Cart on game day.
In addition to the thrill of creating salad recipes, participants also operate the SaladUP! Concession Cart at Target Field. Through this real-life business experience ROOTS teens envision new dreams and forge new pathways for their futures.
What's New in 2022
Finding fresh ways to share scrumptious salads
2021 was the undoing of expectations, but it also created plenty of room for innovation and new possibilities: two things Roots for the Home Team knows well. 2022 brings more opportunities to keep on innovating. ROOTS youth are incredibly active in the community. Support our young leaders at these upcoming events.
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.
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.
Youth Spotlight
Meet Michael
He found his ROOTS, and we found a great team member.
2022 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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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.