South Atlanta Farms is two things at once, on purpose: a working production farm whose food earns revenue, and a youth workforce-development site whose first cohort of paid fellows starts June 8, 2026.
Five acres behind Luther J. Price Middle School, inside the Purpose Built Schools campus. The farm grew 5,500–6,000 pounds of seasonal produce on a quarter-acre in 2025 — more than $22,000 in retail value — earning revenue from chefs, markets, and cafeterias.
In its first formal program year, the farm reached 263 young people — 43 in paid workforce roles, 170 in farm-based programming, and 50+ adults trained as multipliers. The first cohort of paid SYEP fellows starts June 8, 2026.
The land question is the spine of this work. South Atlanta Farms isn't a startup farm hoping to scale — it's neighborhood infrastructure being stewarded. The farm sits on the Purpose Built Schools campus, and we're working toward a model where this land stays a neighborhood asset in perpetuity: not for one founder, not for one season, but for the south side, for good.
We grow food where food has been hard to find. We teach where students already learn. And we're building something meant to outlast all of us.
One in six Atlanta children faces hunger. 28.1% of Georgia children live in food-insecure households. Food-insecure children, on average, score lower on tests of cognitive function and are more likely to repeat a grade.
The PBSA campus sits inside that statistical picture — and the farm sits inside the PBSA campus. That's not a coincidence of geography. It's the model. The research on farm-to-school programs has been clear for two decades: every study measuring dietary outcomes shows students eating more fruits and vegetables, and students in school-gardening programs score higher on science achievement.
This is what distinguishes South Atlanta Farms from a school garden. Four revenue streams run in parallel — and the goal is for food sales to carry the majority of operations by 2028.
Chef boxes, restaurant accounts, market sales, and cafeteria supply.
Programming and service contracts with Purpose Built Schools Atlanta.
Farm-hosted events, camps, tours, and educational programming.
Multi-year grant applications totaling $275,000 in flight under fiscal sponsorship.
In 2025, PBSA service contracts were 69% of total revenue. By 2028, that share is engineered to fall to 28% — while food sales grow from a rounding-error $450 to a projected $150,000+. The investment is built to taper, not deepen.
2025's harvest came off a quarter-acre. By 2028 the farm works 1.5 acres in production — and food sales carry the majority of operations.
The farm is moving from being a program within Purpose Built Schools to being a partner alongside it. Anchored, supported — no longer carried.— South Atlanta Farms · 2026
Mark is Atlanta-rooted, and so is this work. He started South Atlanta Farms not to build a farm for himself, but to build the kind of place he always wanted to see in his own city — a third space where neighbors grow food, kids find calm in a chicken coop, and economic value circulates back into the neighborhoods that built Atlanta.
The site is about the farm, not the founder. But the conviction underneath it is plain: this should not be his. It should be the community's.
An early stake in a self-sustaining neighborhood institution — one that feeds, teaches, employs, and convenes.
