NEXT Steps Youth Entrepreneur Program, Inc.

Specialties

The NEXT Steps Youth Entrepreneur Program manages Atwood Community Gardens — a 3.5 acre S.T.E.M-based urban agriculture training center and outdoor event facility. NEXT Steps utilizes transferable skills within the urban agriculture industry to introduce at risk youth to career pathways in science, technology, engineering and math (S.T.E.M.), strategic business planning, special event coordination, investigative research and discovery, community service, environmental stewardship, and social entrepreneurism. Atwood Community Gardens is located at 779 Atwood Street SW, Atlanta, GA 30 310 — in the heart of West End Atlanta (near the Atlanta University Center, Morehouse & Spelman Colleges).

History

Established in 2008.

NEXT Steps has used urban farms like the Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (College Park) and Atwood Community Gardens & Urban Farm (West End Atlanta) to facilitate training programs that positively address three key barriers that currently promote food insecurities as well as income and health disparities within these markets: lack of access to fresh produce, limited income opportunities and poor eating habits and food choices.

Meet the Business Owner

Dana H.

Business Owner

As Founder of The NEXT Steps Youth Entrepreneur Program, I designed NSYEP activities to help encourage students to adopt self-​regulating behaviors. The care we demonstrate in our training activities help students identify sustainable solutions that bridge the gap between the current lack effective instructional and workforce development training and the actual integration of solution-​based activities that guarantee step-​by-​step. Our programs help eliminate the barriers that hinder a fundamental understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying many important health and developmental outcomes as they relate to at risk students. We are prepared to (1) precisely identify and operationally reconcile the basic processes and mechanisms involved in helping students self-​regulate and (2) systematically characterize changes in self-​regulatory functions over time, across different social and environmental contexts, and across the lifespan in youth and their family unit.