What a week it has been in Region 20! This week was the first week of our summer pilot program “Sharing from the Garden”. We will be traveling to 4 schools in our region to introduce new local produce to school-aged children. They will get the chance to prepare this produce in recipes and even have the chance take home a bag of local produce at the end of the program. Last week during a radio interview, the host asked us if we thought being flexible was going to be important this summer. We replied with “Of course!”. Nothing ever goes as planned, especially when working with children.
First thing Monday morning, Kelley and I (Allison) had to think on our feet when some miscommunication occurred with a school we had scheduled to present at Monday morning. We learned that the school’s summer school program was not scheduled to start until the end June, but we had it scheduled to start Monday morning. After already cutting up produce early Monday morning, we called a local family treatment center with high school and middle school students and presented our program there. Since our program is geared more towards elementary students, we had to think on our feet and be flexible as we changed it to fit the different age group. The kids enjoyed our presentation and are looking forward to us coming back next week and throughout June! We’re excited to continue it with this age group as it will give us more experience.
We continued to learn to be flexible throughout the week as each school was a little different. After having an abundance of produce leftover, we decided to visit the Jefferson Street Farmer’s Market Thursday evening to give adults a chance to also taste test local produce, versus commercially produced produce from the store. This helped us reach another set of audience. It was interesting hearing many people be able to taste and see the difference between the store bought cucumbers and strawberries versus the locally grown!
This flexibility lesson is one that we will remember and use in more than one way throughout our lives. We are excited to have this program up and going and can’t wait to see the impact it leaves on the children and communities. Region 20 interns are having a blast working and learning this summer and can’t wait to share more with you!
– Allison Hadley 🙂
P.S. We missed our fellow intern Kelsey, as she spent the week at the Pork Expo!