GROWing Leadership Skills - Evan Braun
My name is Evan Braun, a rising senior at Fort Defiance High School, and this is my third summer working at Project Grows. I started as a Youth Leader in Agriculture (YLA) member in the summer of 2023. During that summer I learned the base gardening skills and got a feel for how the farm operated. In the summer of 2024, I was promoted to an Assistant Crew Leader of the YLA crew. My leadership grew as I took on more responsibilities leading half the crew and demonstrating my knowledge I gained from last year. In the summer of 2025, the present summer, my position at Project Grows is the YLA Crew Leader. I now, with additional help from the farm coordinator Reh, comfortably lead the group throughout our daily tasks, and I have led multiple volunteer groups up to 25 people. The past three summers have allowed me to continually grow in my leadership skills, farm skills, and public speaking.
The most recent summer has been one of my favorites: with a positive group of people, increased responsibility, and more involvement in farm tasks. Many days go by quickly due to the group of people I work with. Everyone has meshed together nicely and is quite outgoing compared to previous years. As the crew leader, I have more responsibility for what happens around the farm and how it happens. I have enjoyed leading this crew as they are all very cooperative, work hard, and genuinely enjoy what they're doing (most of the time). I have helped pick out tasks that need to be done and learned how to view the farm from that eye. All of these things have set me up for success in the future of my career and my own garden.
With the knowledge I have gained from my summers at Project Grows, with the help of my family, I have built a garden in my back yard. What started out as an empty 20 by 30 foot box marked in a field has now flourished into a producing, organically grown home garden. I have harvested over fifty cucumbers, many flower bouquets, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes, and much more yet to come. All of this would not have been possible without the support of Project Grows. Whether that be through the knowledge I gained while working here or the willingness to lend tools for the process, they were always an option for me. In conclusion, I would just like to thank Project Grows for the help and experiences from this summer and all the past ones as well.