Hiya, my name is Alyssa and I’m working for the Student Farm as a communications intern this summer!
As a communications intern, most of my work for the Farm happens behind the scenes. I’m the person behind all of our media outlets, so I get to spend my days snapping photos of our unassuming farm interns and beautiful veggies and then I get to share them with all of you (…Feedback is always, always welcome!!).
I work really well with the help of to-do lists, so here’s a list of what else I’m working on this summer: curating blog content, writing a weekly CSA newsletter (and experimenting with recipes along the way), creating informational and promotional materials for the Farm and Sustainable Food Systems Program, and… I am currently in the midst of gathering/inventing content, photos, and a new organizational structure in order to (attempt to) pull off a major overhaul of this website (wish me luck?).
In short… my job keeps me rather busy, but I totally love it. I get to learn new things about social media and website management, experiment with marketing campaigns, tell the story of the Student Farm at Penn State via social media, and create funky new designs for student farm merchandise.
Our new tote bags were designed by me, Alyssa Gurklis. Photo: Carolina Negron
When I signed on as an intern for the Farm, I really wanted to learn more about crop production and farm management. As a (just-outside-of) Pittsburgh native, I don’t have a background in agriculture. At Penn State, I study Community, Environment, and Development (CED)… and I absolutely love it (10/10 would recommend the CED major #shamelesspromo). I’m interested in the ways that food and farming can serve as a mechanism for bring people and communities together.
My experience this summer (and with the Food Systems Program, broadly) has taught me so much about agriculture and our food system, and it has also provided me with so many opportunities for professional development, for travel, and with a space where I can pursue my own interests, too.
As a member of the Student Farm Club, I have been able to explore the ways that food functions to bring people together. Last year, I piloted a series of collaborative cooking events that Hayly Hoch, co-director of the Student Farm Club, and I dreamed up last summer. The series, aptly named Cooking Collaborative, “intends to bring community members together through an inventive culinary experience promoting healthy, fresh, and local eating.” The goals of these events are to invite community members of diverse backgrounds (academic, age, and otherwise) to come together to collectively learn how to prepare a whole and healthy meal in a participatory fashion, and to foster a dialogue about our food system and the ways in which we engage with it each day.
I plan to continue to experiment with this program in the coming year. Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to co-present on the topic at the 2016 Sustainable Agriculture Education Association Conference, which was held at UC Santa Cruz. Hayly and I presented the framework of the events, and later got to discuss new ideas to bring to the program with fellow attendees. The conference was absolutely amazing, and I left with many new ideas and with some much needed energy to finish out end of this summer.
Left: SAEA 2016 Conference Booklet, Right: Hayly (right) and I presenting about Cooking Collaborative at SAEA
To see where the Farm, the Program, Cooking Collaborative, and I are headed next… follow along on Facebook and Instagram and by subscribing to our listerv!