About our work

Project Hope, d.b.a. River City Youth Ops, strives to build community health through youth food & farming education and service learning. We are best known for our summer farm-to-community program, where youth grow, harvest, and eat fresh produce together at our urban market-garden in the West Central neighborhood. We believe that being connected to food builds community, heals bodies and minds, and supports trauma recovery. Our other projects and initiatives include:

Community Recipe Box: This initiative fosters the exchange of food knowledge to support community health, reduce food waste, and celebrate the diversity of food traditions in Spokane
Participant Advisory Board: This project is in development. We hope to make space and feedback mechanisms for former and current participants of our summer program to guide the future direction of our organization.

Although we are not religiously affiliated, we operate our programs from the West Central Abbey. By renting space from the Abbey, we are able to continue our place-based work within the West Central neighborhood.

2023 impact data

Donations of time, expertise, goods, and dollars helped make this impact possible!

What we're grateful for this season

River City Youth Ops is grateful for so much as we continue to grow as an organization and look towards the end of one year and the beginning of another. This year, we doubled our staff, watched youth make 100% of their breakfasts and lunches during our program, developed our Board of Directors, and launched 2 new projects. We are filled with gratitude for all of the donors in our network who contribute their time, treasure, and talent to our shared mission to support community health through youth farming and food education. Thank you all for supporting our vision.

Give your way with RCYO this Giving Tuesday

The time, treasure, talent, generosity, and engagement of our community makes our work possible! See below for all of the different ways you can support our programs this season:

Money

An unrestricted financial donation is one way to directly support our youth programs. Every dollar donated is used to support the costs associated with sustaining our farm-to-community opportunities for youth as we pivot to year-round operations.

Donations support:

Youth education stipends
Food worker permit fees for youth
Food budget for youth-made meals
Seeds, organic soil amendments, and farm tools
More!

Time

Donating your time as a volunteer with our organization also supports our year-round activities! Our volunteer network is full of committed, passionate, amazing members of our community. Here are some ways volunteers support our work:

Watering and weeding our farming spaces
Turning our compost
With our youth programs: farmers market support, transportation/field trip support, etc.
Event support

To sign up to volunteer, please complete our volunteer interest form here.

Voice

If you love our work, please spread the word within your network! You can also contribute your voice to our Community Recipe Box by sharing a recipe.

In-kind goods & services

Did you know that we accept in-kind donations of goods and services? Here are some examples of our favorite in-kind donations:

Land

Our youth team is interested in finding more new spaces to grow food in the West Central neighborhood to connect more people with fresh produce. If you have land you'd like to turn into food for our community of people or pollinators, reach out to us at info@youthops.org to connect.

Thank you!

Giving Tuesday 2023

By River City Youth Ops

Giving Tuesday 2023

Help River City Youth Opportunities expand to year-round farm & food programming