In the Fall of 2025, the Sacramento Audubon Board received a grant request from Green Tech Education and Employment ( https://www.greentechedu.org/ ) a nonprofit that offers innovate workforce skills to youth and young adults of frontline communities (i.e., communities of color, Indigenous peoples, and people with lower incomes who are impacted first and worst by environmental hazards and climate change) with an emphasis on environmental protection, justice, and economic development.
Green Tech students are learning workforce and entrepreneurial techniques that teach them a work ethic while focusing on reducing greenhouse gases, reducing pollution and improving living conditions in low income communities. Programs include Urban Farming, Urban Forestry, Aquaponics, Solar Technology, Weatherization, Energy Efficiency, Computer Programming, 3-D Printing, Arduino, Construction Trades, Landscaping, and General Labor. At the Green Tech Teaching Urban Farming, Forestry, and Aquaponics Urban Farm located at 4309 38th Street in Sacramento there was a desire to partner with Sacramento Audubon to attract birds to the garden site and develop a program around environmental/fish and wildlife employment opportunities and awareness.
Sacramento Audubon funded the purchase of bird feeders, birdseed, binoculars, and bird identification books. After a recent visit to the Urban Farm, by Green Tech Board President Simeon Gant, I got a text from him with the pictures below that said, “When I came to the garden yesterday, this is what I saw.
As the students are getting familiar with birds and birding, the next step will be to take them on field trips locally to see birds in our local parks and areas of conserved habitat while discussing career options and conservation.
Photo by Simeon Grant
Photo by Simeon Grant