The Baltimore MicroFarming Project The Baltimore MicroFarming Project was launched in January of this year (2012). The project is the brainchild of Johns Hopkins University students who were inspired during a JHU Intersession class Leading Social Change a class focusing on designing social entrepreneurial ventures. The Project was awarded a $5000 grant during an in class competition that provides funding to turn ideas inspired during the class into reality. The Baltimore MicroFarming Project is modeled after other similar community based farms and garden that have been appearing as part of a growing Urban Farm in both Baltimore and the rest of the country. The Baltimore MicroFarming Project aims to promoting community involvement and relationship building by seeking to involve community members and organizations (The Goodnow Community Center, The IRC, etc) in every aspect of planning and implementing a community garden in Baltimore. Through the project, refugees who choose to participate will be provided opportunities for use of old skills developed in their home countries while learning new skills. For example the refugees can work in conjunction with ESL classes (Baltimore Community College) and can develop community contacts with the greater Baltimore Urban Farming community (Johns Hopkins Sustainability Office, Baltimore Urban Agriculture, etc.). The project seeks to establish a self-sustaining framework in which those working with the garden can supplement their diet and income via the farms products. The planned project is a much larger scale version of a small refugee garden that was implemented by one of the students, Anna Wherry, during her senior year of High School in Frederick, Maryland. Annas experience with that garden enabled her to see that the immigrants working in the garden were actually able to improve the quality of life through the garden. Many of the refugees that Ms. Wherry encountered during her high school experiences commented that they felt the urban environment of the city was robbing them of opportunities to pass their culture to future generations. The project is targeted at refugees who were previously involved in agricultural pursuits in their home countries. Upon relocating to Baltimore, many of these refugees now hold menial jobs in factories. Further, many of these refugees have been relocated to a housing complex that is located in the middle of a food desert - more than a of a mile from public transportation and potentially much further from an actual grocery store. The ultimate goal is to turn this project over to the immigrants that the project is designed to benefit. Instead of working for the refugees, the foundation of the project is the idea of working with the refugees. By holding focus groups, involving community leaders, and limiting the involvement of groups that may attempt to compromise the autonomy of the refugee community, The Project hopes to eventually phase out the involvement of the original project design team and leave the fully functioning farm in the capable hands of the refugee community. While the team that launched the project all work cooperatively on all aspects of the project, Anna Wherry, now serves as the General Manager of project operations. Kaetan Vyas and Jared Katz are responsible for management of the projects business model and Bridget Harkness serves as the Communications and Marketing Manager. The project is currently talking to several community organizations who are very interested in the project and looking for additional grants to supplement the original $5,000 grant. The first challenge faced is to secure a 2-acre piece of land that has been located and is within 10 minutes walking distance from the refugee resettlement housing Additionally the team is in the process of running focus groups including the immigrant population and handing out surveys to assure that needs of the refugee and greater Baltimore community are met.