GROW (Green Revitalization Outreach Workforce) Externships

With additional funding for GROW Externships, I would be able to further support BIPOC and women/LGBTQ participants in my programming, covering their costs of travel, room and board as well as providing them well earned honorariums for their hard work helping communities and project in spaces who need their help. It is a strong goal of mine that this professional experience is well compensated for to ensure that the seeds planted for professionals to grow have the proper resources to bear fruit, but this takes a significant amount of funding which is beyond our current internal capacity.

With nearly 20 years of experience developing green roofs and urban farms for New York City, Max Lerner directs environmental initiatives of the Emerging Technologies team of the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. In that capacity, Max has implemented countless environment pilots for the city covering a broad range of sustainability goals. Max is able to achieve this bold scope of work through the collaborative efforts of a rotating think tank of approximately 100 scientific visionaries who continually manages to bring cutting-edge environmental ideas to life for the public. Through his development of the nonprofit GROW Externships he is furthering his personal goal of engaging a diverse spectrum of developing professionals in the STEAM career field through active work experiences to develop their portfolios and find scope.

GROW (Green Revitalization Outreach Workforce) Externships is committed

to solving a classic challenge of land management projects being unable
to flourish while creating a pipeline of high ability and decorated
experts in the field of sustainability to help save our evolving
environment. We support externs from underrepresented groups and expand
accessibility to careers in environmental science and related fields. We
envision a program for people newly entering the environmental science
workforce to rapidly build their credentials which not only expedites
their training but additionally assists in-need populations and projects
in the process.

GROW Externships (Green Revitalization Outreach Workforce) is a
501(c)(3) designed for people newly entering the environmental science
workforce to rapidly build their credentials in a way that not only
expedites their training but additionally assists an in-need population.
Vetted professionals are granted the opportunity of gaining managerial
level experience on farms in Japan and Hawaii, building high level
abilities in a unique arena over a short period of time. A central
aspect of our program is providing honorariums to externs of all
economic backgrounds. We do this to provide the greatest possible access
to participants. Externs don’t have to face undue financial burden to
be part of the program, as the costs are compensated to ensure a cash
positive scenario. Farms in Japan and Hawaii requiring volunteer
assistance are able to secure staff that is traditionally otherwise
unavailable on a local level, creating a win-win scenario for all people
involved.

We select program participants across a broad spectrum of need, both in terms of required financial assistance as well as diversifying representation and inclusion in STEAM careers. As of January 2021, we’ve supported extern cohorts that have been 50% BIPOC and 41% women/LGBTQ participants. We have coordinated seven cohorts to date and look to conduct an additional two by EOY 2021.