Every Tuesday and Saturday, 16 students from Raleigh, N.C., area high schools spend a few hours learning to plant, grow and cook sustainable foods. Their classroom is the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle farm, which helps urban kids nurture the land as well as their neighbors in need. The Young Farmer Training Program provides its teenaged apprentices with a weekly paycheck, fresh produce, farming know-how for a lifetime and the chance to cook for the hungry. Besides working their own farm, the teens visit other local farms to see how they work and, sometimes, to pick surplus crops to cook for the Food Shuttle’s other programs.

Young Farmer Training Program apprentices harvest spring lettuce recently at the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle's farm in Raleigh, N.C. (Photo by TRAVIS LONG, News & Observer)