Fringe [Foodie] Benefits

With AmeriCorps Week behind us, I’ve had a lot of time to consider how “AmeriCorps works,” and the impact I witness firsthand each day as a FoodCorps Service Member. It’s easy to look at the benefit of my service as simply the community that I serve in, the pounds of produce we harvest and donate, the new dishes kids have tasted and the minutes we spend together in the classroom or the garden. Those are hard facts, raw data. We compile all of those figures specifically because they do paint a pretty fascinating picture—assigning some sort of number value to my service. Lately, I’ve been more inclined to look at the benefits of service that I receive.

Just a few weeks ago, I got a package in the mail from Seed Savers Exchange. I was really excited to open it and find a beautiful French Breakfast radish t-shirt, some awesome heirloom seeds, and a book on saving seed. There was information on how to sell seeds as a spring fundraiser, which I hope to do next year because it was unfortunately a little too late for this spring. I have admired Seed Savers Exchange ever since I read about the organization a few years back. To be receiving a package full of goodies from them because of my affiliation with FoodCorps was unreal.

Lettuce and spinach thrive in Sara's greenhouse. 

A few weeks later, I received an email from the folks at FoodCorps double-checking my mailing address where I could receive a package. This request was just enough detail to get me excited, but I had no idea what I was in for. For Christmas this year, I got a fancy food dehydrator. After experimenting with all sorts of raw recipes and kale chips and dried-every-kind-of-fruit, I made the decision that the next big-ticket kitchen gadget I would need to invest in was a Vitamix blender. I’m not sure where I learned about Vitamixes, because it almost seems to me that the legendary blenders have always had a spot in my food/cooking obsessed brain. Imagine my surprise about a week after the mailing address email, when I got a new email announcing the shipment of a Vitamix blender for each FoodCorps Service Member. I immediately started fantasizing about all the kale smoothies and nut butters I would soon be whipping up.

The Vitamix has arrived!

I waited anxiously for my new culinary toy to arrive. And waited. And waited. I was starting to worry that it was lost in the mail. My fellow Service Members around Arkansas had received theirs. Service Members in very remote, rural places had received theirs. I was stressed. Finally one Tuesday evening, (probably only a little more than a week after the announcement was made) my blender was here.

I unpacked the box. There was an instructional DVD. I wasn’t sure why a blender would need a DVD accompaniment, and I skipped ahead to the beautiful hardcover cookbook. Again, never realized that a blender would need a cookbook. But then I saw the recipe for milk substitutes (soy milk, almond milk, coconut milk, cashew milk, rice milk, on and on). I was hooked.

Look at that crowd!

That week in the garden, we harvested 6 pounds of sweet winter kale. In each class the following week, we made kale smoothies. Each group started off a bit skeptical—kale, strawberries, peaches, and other assorted fruits and veggies make for a bizarrely colored drink. However, after the first sip, most of the students were converted. After school, a group of students approached me to ask for some more kale so they could go home and recreate their own smoothies. I am so excited about all the creative ways we can use the Vitamix to expose kids to new ways to incorporate veggies into their day. 

- by Sara Fulton-Koerbling 

Gardening and Coordinated School Health in Yellville, AR

Starting in January, we began to look to the future of the garden program here at Yellville-Summit. We had a meeting with different stakeholders, teachers, parents, administrators, community members, and students. This was an opportunity to discuss the possible scenarios for the garden and how we could make them a reality into the future. That discussion got me thinking about how the garden came to be, and how it will evolve into the future. On that note, I’ve asked Valerie Davenport, the Yellville-Summit Coordinated School Health Coordinator, to write about her experience bringing the Delta Garden Study to the school and her feelings on the program as both a parent and a staff member:

I do not have a formal background in the field of public health, however I do have a passion for many things health related.  I briefly considered entering the medical field when many of my co-workers (while working as a teaching assistant at U of A in Fayetteville) began taking the MCAT! My education background includes 13 years in the classroom as a science instructor as well as a couple of years as an education technician for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission and a lifetime as a child of 2 devoted educators.  I was employed at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year as Coordinated School Health Coordinator for Yellville-Summit School District. Early in the school year I heard about the Delta Garden Study at a training meeting for CSH coordinators, but didn’t really think we would be considered a school in the Delta region.  When I learned that Marshall was in the program, I checked it out on the web and began the application process.  

My vision for the garden was to see students outside and learning in a hands-on setting.  My two youngest children are fortunate to be involved in the program this year.  They have both enjoyed having much of their learning taking place out in the garden. Here’s a quote from one of my daughter’s class assignments “If you haven’t worked in a garden at all then you have missed out big time.” My son enjoys the time outside of the confines of the classroom and has encouraged me to try a couple of the garden recipes at home because he loved the samples!

I am extremely excited about the future of the garden at Yellville-Summit, I would love to see the garden in use by all of our educators as a learning tool!  So many concepts from the classroom could be reinforced by experiencing them in the “field”. I also believe that working in the garden and learning in a real life setting could really be a positive turning point in the lives of many of our students.  In addition, I would love to see produce from the garden in our school cafeteria, just imagine the pride the students would feel if they have taken part in providing food for their peers!

Valerie is just one of the many excited, passionate folks we have working on keeping our garden a vital, sustainable program for our community. Without her, I certainly wouldn’t be here to share my experiences. In addition to spearheading the application process to bring the Delta Garden Study to Yellville-Summit, she tirelessly supports the garden with her grant writing expertise, volunteering her and her family’s Saturdays, and keeping up with all our local garden newspaper features. 

by Sara Fulton-Koerbling

NEW YEAR, MORE MEMORIES

In the spirit of New Year’s resolutions, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do in my service and why.  In this, and most aspects of my life, it comes down to food. I love eating and sharing food with others. I see food as a unique way to build and support community. I get to work with a bunch of twelve year olds to grow, harvest, cook, and eat food; that makes me fee pretty lucky.

Throughout elementary school, I ate hot lunch in the cafeteria. My memories of those meals are not particularly fond. When I got to high school, however, the dining services department was spectacular. We had a salad bar that listed the origins of most of our produce. Living in California, we had farmers growing delicious fresh produce year round. Since I read about who grew this food as I loaded up my plate, I really appreciated eating it. That was the first time I experienced awesome school food that wasn’t pizza or tater tots. When I look back at my food memories, that salad bar always surfaces.

The makings of carrot, beet and ginger salad.

I hope that the work I do with kids here, the work they put into growing food, and the times we share eating it, will become a part of their food memories. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of getting some kids excited about the weird food I make them eat*. I teach one group of students on Monday and Tuesday, then the second half of the middle school on Wednesday and Thursday. Mid-day Monday, I already have kids in the Wednesday and Thursday groups asking, “Are we going to eat anything in the garden this week?” When they see me schlepping down the hall with bowls and cutting boards and the last lukewarm sample, I have to constantly remind people that I would never exclude them from a tasting. Not every kid likes everything we try. Secretly, I make them try things I don’t even like.

When the first kid in a class asks tentatively if they can have seconds, then thirds, then commandeers the rest of the bowl, I sit back and appreciate (and hope) that they will remember that day too.

*one of our main garden rules is that you have to try everything at least once. 

On volunteers and getting the job done

One of the most important factors for the success of a school garden might not be the square footage, the germination rate, or even the expertise of a garden leader. I’m here to tell you that the most important ingredient in creating a lasting school garden is interest.

I almost said excitement was the most important element, but in my experience, excitement fades. It’s been great so far this semester to talk to people at my school and in the community who are excited about having a school garden project. However, the majority of those supporters haven’t made it out to our garden workshops or contributed anything more than a kind word. I am not ungrateful for that encouragement, especially on tough days. Realistically though, it takes a village.

Here at Yellville-Summit, we have begun hosting volunteer work parties. Our preparations for a winter garden simply kept getting pushed back, especially when the weekend temperatures stayed in the 70’s into November. It was easy to pretend that it would never turn cold, yet here I am, during a week where the high hasn’t gotten to 40, and the temperature inside our (unheated) greenhouse doesn’t go about freezing until after lunch.

It seems as though a completed greenhouse is our white whale. We have had something greenhouse related on our to-do lists since my first week on the job. We’ve relied a lot on the help of volunteers to make the final push to finish. Pulling plastic proved our number one delicate and challenging task. Pulling plastic involves taking a single sheet of plastic and stretching it over the frame to form the roof of the greenhouse. You need a lot of hands to do the actual pulling and attaching; you need a day with very little wind, otherwise you’ll get picked up and blown to Missouri! I’ve been told that at this time of year in the Ozarks, on nice clear days, the wind comes up. On days that it isn’t windy, it’s probably raining or snowing.

We scheduled three days to pull plastic. The first day, we cancelled because it was raining. The second day, we had about 12 people come out to help; however,  it was too windy to, so we worked on the end walls instead. The final day, we had a small window of time before the wind came up. We called on some high school volunteers to come out after their lunch and a group of community volunteers who also came after their lunch break. At long last, everything was secured, tightened, and fastened against the wind and the cold weather.

These volunteer days, held over the weekend, and open to parents, students, teachers, community members, and anyone who might want to lend a hand, are really inspiring. Our aim is to make these work days fun, informative, and productive. We build the day around a certain task to finish. This past weekend, we needed to build raised beds inside of our greenhouse. We started the day with a brief overview of season extension techniques and cold weather crops. After squaring the ends of lots of cedar boards, we had a mulching crew and a construction crew. After about an hour of work, I drifted off toward the kitchen to prepare our edible rewards for the volunteers. We had roasted root veggies and sautéed greens—eating both the tops and the bottoms of many of the same plants. Turnips and beets, collards, carrots, rainbow chard, and tatsoi.

As most of my projects tend to be, this was kind of a fly by the seat of our pants endeavor. No matter how many times I measure and level my cuts, one board will always be off. I’m not good at being precise. I’ve learned to live with this, but working with new people is always interesting. We are lucky enough to have quite a few people in the area with expertise in carpentry and woodworking, in addition to farming and gardening. I’m generally the least experienced person in the bunch. What I think is acceptably straight and what the woodworker down the street thinks is quite different. I have learned to stand back and let those more experienced take the lead. For example, this weekend I provided a pile of local cedar planks, a workshop with tools, a draft of the proposed greenhouse layout, and the instruction to do whatever he thought was best to get it done. The project took longer than the two hours I had allotted for it, but when I hand the reigns over the results can be pretty spectacular.

For me, the most surprising part of the day was who actually showed up in support. Many of our ten volunteers had no connection to the school or the project - most of them don’t work here or have kids in the program. They simply heard about the garden workday and wanted to come help. They aren’t just coming to bring their kids, or because a teacher told them about the opportunity. I’m particularly excited about those volunteers. Those volunteers are very likely to keep coming back and stay invested.

Our garden would not be as far along, as productive, or as likely to continue into the future without the help of our volunteers. 

by Sara Fulton-Koerbling