River City Youth Ops ( formerly Project Hope Spokane)

Youth Ops (Project Hope Spokane) is a youth development organization that has been active in the West Central neighborhood for 10 years.  We serve 75-100 youth a year. We hire youth, ages 14 - 18 to work in our urban farm or as part of our lawn care crew. We also engage youth from the ages of 11-13 as volunteers. Through this, youth learn job skills and how to be good employees. In addition to growing produce, participants manage the Youth Ops booth at 3 farmers markets where they interact with customers selling produce and promoting Youth Ops.

Participants benefit by having an organized, positive way to be engaged in their community; by learning news skills which helps grow their confidence; having a mentoring relationship with a positive adult.

The Ops in Youth Ops stands for opportunities.

Youth learn many skills related to growing food: planning and planting a garden, soil testing, composting, irrigation, and weed/pest control.

Youth Ops participants also harvest and prepare produce for distribution to those in need, or to be sold at farmers markets. They are coached on good customer service and also learn skills for inventory control and money handling.

Through Youth Ops Lawn Care, our participants learn not only the skills of lawn upkeep, but they learn time management and develop problem solving skills.

In all of these activities, youth are supervised by a young adult who mentors the youth not only on the tasks and skills to do the job, but also on intangible skills such as getting along with others, stay on task or being on time. We also bring in other community resources, like banking representatives and elected officials. 

Youth benefit by having an additional caring adult in their life. They gain confidence when they try new things. Youth Ops participants learn to look to their future and how to take steps to where they want to be in life.