Hello everyone! About three years ago as a first-year student, I wrote a blog post for the Student Farm as one of their new, incoming interns. Now (right before my graduation!) I’ve come full circle and am writing another one! This semester, I have earned my General Health and Wellness credits with the Student Farm by continuing my work outside on the farm and helping develop General Health and Wellness curriculum for students who hope to earn credits through the Student Farm.
A lot has changed since my last blog post, and yet at the same time, I still resonate with everything I said and who I was back then. In my last blog post, I started out by describing my desire to be a farmer at a young age despite having little opportunity to interact with food systems. I can still remember how giddy I felt as I prepared for a full-time summer on the Student Farm. This photo of me is during my first ever harvest on the farm – I harvested spinach! This picture was very difficult to find in my camera roll because I took pictures of every single plant during every stage of its growth. That is how excited I was!
That summer on the farm was incredible and transformative. I’d never felt so connected to the people, land, and food around me. And to my younger self. From then on, it became my mission to help other students have this opportunity and to continue immersing myself in it as well. Through my internship and leadership involvement with the Student Farm Club, I gave tours of the farm, led workdays, managed our CSA program, and participated in educational events related to sustainable agriculture. I felt the exact same joy talking about farming there that I did during career day in elementary school, where in my last blog post I described as, “I was usually quiet as a child, but on career day that year I felt pure joy talking to others about farming as I sat and peeled corn.”
The students and staff involved with the Student Farm quickly became my community, and the farm itself became my home and happy place. My happiest moments were at the Student Farm and during my hardest times, I retreated to the farm, to my work and passions, and to this community of amazing people. It made me realize how important community is, and now I know that wherever I go, finding and building a community will be very important to me.
I’ll wrap up this post by reflecting on what I said at the end of my last post. I said, “I am really looking forward to cooking with food from the Student Farm and giving my community members and fellow students fresh produce, so they, too, can cook for others with gratitude! I am especially looking forward to learning sustainable agricultural practices, so that I can further my mission of caring for and expressing my gratitude for the natural world.” It was my pleasure to do these things! I had the opportunity to grow fresh produce for others through the Student Farm, as I had expected, but also through other initiatives like our pay-what-you-can market stand and Schreyer Pocket Garden. These took this mission a step further by making fresh produce more affordable and accessible. I learned many sustainable agricultural practices, and they have informed my studies and career, as I plan to study and model community food systems resiliency in graduate school. I can’t wait to have my own garden (or community garden) someday where I can keep putting these practices into action and cultivating my relationship with the natural world!