Mountain Food & Farm Apprenticeship Program
We are not currently accepting new applicants for this program.
As part of the EmPOWERing Mountain Food Systems Project in the seven western counties of North Carolina, including the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Empowering Mountain Food Systems Apprenticeship Program brings education and workforce development opportunities to the region in partnership with Western Carolina University, Haywood Community College, Southwestern Community College, and Tri-County Community College.
Our goal is to match paid Apprentices with regional food and farming Mentor Businesses along the local supply chain. By pairing unique student skill sets with business needs, we have an opportunity to help provide services Mentors need to improve their business’ profitability and exposure while supplying real life experience for college students and the potential for future local business development. 
This program is designed to encourage buying and eating local. The far western mountain region of NC has bountiful farmland, accessible natural resources, admired educational institutions, an amazing sense of community, and businesses which strive to promote an active and healthy lifestyle. The mission of the Mountain Food and Farm Apprenticeship Program is to bring all of these resources together for regional economic success.
What’s it like to be a Food and Farm Apprentice?
2020 imposed the limitation of not being able to have our apprentices work onsite at the farms or businesses. Instead, EMFS did a COVID-19 pivot and created remote apprenticeships. These apprentices and their mentors were able to adapt and do amazing work virtually.
Meet Zanaya Salaam, apprentice for Long Family Farm. With no prior experience, Zanaya created a website with an online store and great content as well as helped develop marketing strategies. She says “I learned A LOT during this apprenticeship and I have had such an impact on this farm and their family. This experience has been so special for me, I am extremely grateful that I was given the opportunity to become an apprentice for this team.” See the website that Zanaya worked on here!
Nancy Long is interviewed here, talking about her side of the experience and singing the praises of Zanaya and the apprentice/mentor program- check it out!
Chizoba Uwakwe, apprentice for Haywood Historic Farmer’s Market, had a fun and fruitful experience: “Through this, I was able to connect with not only the farmers market but connect with their vendors and customers. One of the highlights of this experience was creating different activities for the Appalachian Grown Farmers Market month of August. For this month, I created bingo cards with all the different vendors at the market, this helped the customers connect and travel to see what each vendor had to offer and it was such a success.” The Farmer’s Market really appreciated her work! They say their apprentice was “a social media whiz, she made improvements to our Facebook and Instagram accounts, created beautiful content, designed engaging posts and activities like thank-you videos and farmers market bingo, and helped us learn from the analytics. What’s more, because of the difficult circumstances surrounding COVID-19, she accomplished her apprenticeship totally remotely. Her professionalism, can-do attitude, and great work ethic made mentoring her a pleasure.”
Mallaidh (Molly) Mleziva and Kris Ly apprenticed for the Sustainabillies, who grow and sell organic produce and plant, metalworking products and offer classes as well. Kris and Molly worked with two WCU professors Heidi Dent and Barbara Jo White and the EMFS Food and Farm Apprenticeship project manager Christina Newhouse. Together they designed a website that allows the public to interface with their client, creating the opportunity for increased revenue and agritourism. Kris and Molly also helped in implementing marketing strategies and product branding. Molly says “I really enjoyed the team that I worked with throughout this project. Having the weekly meetings to chat and touch base on the progress of our efforts was really nice!” Molly also appreciated the “variety of tasks that I was assigned, from developing how-to guides and creating evergreen social media content to researching competitors and brainstorming a design for the new website.” Kris said her highlights included the opportunity to put her learning into real-world application and implementing strategies from her classrooms in a real-world setting. She says “While, yes, I still had others to provide me with guidance and instructions, I was empowered to be in charge of what I delivered and how I completed my tasks. To me, the responsibilities helped form a realistic expectation of how the productivity flow and operations look like in real-world companies and organizations. The apprenticeship marketing team provided “transformative support” to Sara and Dustin Martin of the Sustainabillies that helped them through a challenging year. They comment “The product that was generated was beyond our expectations and has added so much to our business presence online. Our website is very professional and has allowed several customers to interact with us before actually coming to our farm.” See the website that this team designed here!