The Grow Collective
Twelve youth.
One community food system in motion.
Growing food, making product, building the model for a community food system across Baltimore and beyond.
What this program produces:
Food Security
Product Design & Entrepreneurship
Youth Workforce Development
Food Is Medicine
Community Belonging
Career Exposure
How the program works
Across 5 weeks, 12 Baltimore youth work in three stations, the Grow Lab, the Commercial Kitchen, and Community Outreach. Together they run 5 microgreen production cycles, produce 3 signature seasoning blends, and engage 50 Park Heights residents, building real skills in food production, food safety, and neighborhood engagement.
The Grow Lab
Youth run 5 staggered microgreen production cycles, sowing, watering, and harvesting on a real schedule. They log every tray, variety, weight, and days to harvest, turning growing into measurable science.
The Commercial Kitchen
Youth transform their harvest into 3 signature seasoning blends. They learn food safety, processing, packaging, and the math behind what a product really costs to make.
Community Outreach
Youth engage 50 Park Heights residents through tabling, resident packet distribution, and on-site activities, bringing neighbors into the growing community.
They will also engage in over 10 hours with subject matter experts in mental health, environmental sustainability, climate justice, and more; exposure that builds the whole young person.
The Program Closes July 31
The Grow Collective Youth Cohort wraps its first summer on July 31, 2026. We're producing a closing video celebrating what the cohort built — the food they grew, the products they made, and the model we're proving in Park Heights.
The video will be released in August. Sign up below to be the first to see it.
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Meet Quandra
Quandra Gray is the founder of What The Sprout and the creator behind The Grow Collective at the Langston Hughes Community Center in Park Heights. She builds food production and education hubs because she wants to see neighborhoods feed and grow themselves, health, ownership, and opportunity that stays in the community.
At LHCBRC she's hosting a YouthWorks production program that puts that work in young people's hands, where they learn to steward 14 fruit trees and grow on vertical systems. Her work is rooted in one idea: food is where transformation starts. Her Story >
