Javon set foot for the first time at BoysGrow’s farm in 2016 with no farming background and quickly picked up every tool, skill and challenge that came his way. Throughout his time on the farm, he realized that he had a growing passion inside of him for farming that wanted to know more and become a bigger part of this new world he was introduced to. Javon graduated from high school in 2021 and even though he had been out of the program for 3 years, he spearheaded his way back into the agricultural world. Javon is now a sophomore at the University of Central Missouri majoring in Agriculture Science.
Fast forward a few months, and Javon was invited to Seaboard Foods’ winter internship notably dubbed “Winternship” which is a week-long tour hosted by Seaboard Foods for college students during their Winter break. While there, Javon was introduced to a plethora of Seaboard’s facilities including their farms and processing plant.
“BoysGrow introduced me to Agriculture and now I’m exploring all parts of it. My biggest takeaway is that I got to explore a different type of agriculture. I was only familiar with the cultivation of fruits and vegetable crops. I learned all about the process of turning pig into pork.“
-Javon
Seaboard’s processing hub is in Guymon, Oklahoma, located in the panhandle of Oklahoma.
Their Winternship program serves to recruit college students to become future interns and
employees of Seaboard. According to Beth Gerstenberger, Employee Communications Manager
for Seaboard Foods and a BoysGrow board member, participants are selected from community
recruiting events based on their interest in Agribusiness. “Seaboard has always focused on
growing deep relationships in the places we call home. Seaboard Foods not only operates here
(KC), but it’s also where we live, play and raise our families.” -Beth Gerstenberger.
BoysGrow makes every effort to support youth in their professional and life endeavors. While our goal as a program is not to build future farmers or agriculture leaders, we certainly make every effort to expose and support youth to the wide-range in the agriculture industry as an option for their future, and open as many doors as we can for them.
