“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight.”- e.e. cummings
This week has been an incredibly rewarding week for me because I have had the opportunity to see first-hand how our work at Jones Valley Teaching Farm impacts our community, our city, and yes…I believe it impacts the world.
On Monday, I spent the day with our Youth Pathways and Experiences team, which includes 10 interns and 3 apprentices. We toured HudsonAlpha and learned about plant genomics (along with many other things). Learning with and from young people continues to drive me and I was inspired by their questions, interest, and openness.
Mid-week I had the opportunity to test out a food truck concept with our Instructors. As part of the test, I interviewed our middle school culinary club members how they thought we should use the truck. Although they were impressed by it, they were more interested in how the truck could serve other schools without teaching farms and/or take meals to people who need them in our communities. Not surprising at all, but a reminder to me as I continue to think about how yes, it is important to give the young people we work with the best experience we can offer and sometimes that means that the best experience matters when it is shared with others. Phew. Lessons every day.
I also had a chance to spend some time at our teaching farm at Woodlawn High School in conversation with our farmers. While I was there, they left to visit a neighbor because he had stopped by the farm earlier in the week. He helped move some tarp, showed great interest in what we were doing, and invited them to his house to see what he was growing. They came back impressed with his backyard garden and had a bag full of greens in their hands – something he wanted to share with them.
Yesterday, I had the honor of participating in our Good Community Food Fellowship orientation. I watched as 30+ diverse individuals filled our classroom. Some brought young people with them so that as they could experience a field trip with one of our Instructors. It was full circle for me – we were all united in dreaming of communities that are reliant on themselves and each other, full of fresh food, designed by and for the individuals living in them, and willing to go against what the world tells us so that we can create a better future.
There are systems all around us that encourage us to take the easy route. What I loved about being with the fellowship yesterday was that these were individuals from so many different backgrounds, communities, beliefs, and perspectives ready to challenge the easy route. They are, in fact, living out the quote I used earlier and refusing to let the world make them everybody else. They are willing to be vulnerable and learn how to grow, cook, and share food with each other and create a new way to live in community and with each other.
And finally, as we closed out the day, I was reminded of why Jones Valley Teaching Farm must start with young people. We want them to know that it is possible to create new ways of being in community, taking care of ourselves and each other, participating in the educational system, learning, questioning, growing, and everything in between. I hope that in the upcoming years our Fellowship orientation will include many of the young people going through Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s Good School Food model. I envision them sharing their expertise with others and celebrating the ways they recreated systems to work in favor of community with fresh food, resiliency, land stewardship, and care for others at the heart of it all.
To close, I thought I’d include something I saw at Putnam Middle School’s Teaching Farm because I think it perfectly captures our work so well: