The Detroit Urban Farm Project

A social enterprise collaboratively designed by the Templer Foundation, local communities, appropriate non-profits, businesses and local government – to address the following concerns affecting both the citizens and government of the City of Detroit.

Community development through neighborhood revitalization and job creation.
Education and training.
Health, nutrition and human services.
Financial sustainability through revenue generation.

Community Development through neighborhood revitalization and job creation

The Detroit Urban Farm Project will utilize existing vacant structures, typically closed schools. These schools are located in neighborhoods that are fast becoming a breeding ground for illegal activity; namely gang violence, prostitution and drug dealing. Our farms bring new life to these structures and neighborhoods by creating an environmentally friendly center for several social enterprises. We plan to build several small business operations including food processing and distribution, hydroponics greenhouse farm operations, education and training while providing dozens of jobs for people in the community.

Once the farms are up-and-running, they provide sustainable, market wage employment for +/- 30 people per acre (most farms will be 2 – 4 acres) which when coupled with the jobs created and investment in construction will produce a significant multiplier effect to local businesses.

Education and training

As Detroit and the region migrate from a manufacturing-based economy, education and training will be key to re-inventing our workforce. The Detroit Urban Farm Project addresses this through providing skills training in an arena that will grow exponentially as many cities across the nation also grapple with larger land vacancies, obesity and malnutrition.

The Detroit Urban Farm Project will provide education and training in: urban farming, botany, information technology, alternative energy utilization, nutrition, health and science, operations management (Commitment Based Management), lean engineering and basic accounting practices. In addition to addressing the concerns of the locally unemployed, we are partnering with the Wayne State University Math Corps to offer financial stability to local students through employment and training opportunities.

Health, nutrition and human services

In addition to the aforementioned education and training programs, The Detroit Urban Farm Project will address the paradoxical problems of malnutrition and (childhood) obesity through our partnership with the Food Studies Institute. This includes the designing and implementation of a new health education curriculum that will be taught both on our premises and introduced into various school systems. This program has a well-documented history of producing an extensive set of benefits to students such as improvements in behavior and general health and academic performance. This work has been highly affective with at-risk populations by equipping them with practical solutions to a complex set of problems.

Financial sustainability through revenue generation

Having covered all of it’s own operating costs, the profit generated by The Detroit Urban Farm Project will enable the Templer Foundation to fund several non-profit ventures around the city. Our first priority is to provide financial and practical support to many of the +/- 200 terminally ill children (and their families) who exist below the poverty line and are treated every year at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan.

The Detroit Urban Farm Project incorporates a notably robust manufacturing process into its business operations model. This unique offering includes a blend of hydroponics farming processes and practices, Lean Engineering practices and Commitment Based Management practices in order to catalyze effective design, launch and sustainability of social enterprise initiatives. The Detroit Urban Farm Projects will enjoy stableand sustainable revenue streams, providing a solid financial platform from which to launch social enterprise solutions/programs. By design, The Detroit Urban

Farm Projects are duplicable and scaleable.

The Templer Foundation’s long-term goal is to create a consortium of social enterprises within Detroit and neighboring communities, by building partnerships between local businesses and nonprofit organizations. Blending nonprofit and for-profit entities will generate synergies that will allow us to provide more aid/support at reduced costs; these innovative partnerships will enable us to develop new and creative service delivery opportunities for at-risk populations. Additionally, the development of new social enterprise models will improve our ability to finance efforts to address systemic poverty issues within our communities.