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When you were growing up, did you think that tomatoes grew in supermarkets? Did you realize that cotton was a plant before it turned into your new gym socks? New Yorker Wendy Dubit found out that a lot of city kids don’t know anything about farms. She used her own money to set up Farm Hands/City Hands. This organization buses city people to small farms. Children and adults from all social classes help out on family farms and receive room and food in exchange. They also learn things you can’t look up. One lawyer noted, “I worked with the tomatoes for weeks. Now I can pick out the perfectly ripe ones and pass over the ones that need a few more days on the vine.” Many people start small gardens of their own when they get back to the city.

After the success of Farm Hands/City Hands, Dubit went on to invent Project Ongoing to train homeless people in farm work and food services. The project has been so successful that participants get by on the food that they grow. They sell any extra. They hand the profits over to the program.