Last year Jeffers high school students started a garden. With help from a Copper Shores grant and through the farm to school program, students are growing food and learning about nutrition. On Saturday the program will invite the community to share in the fruits of the students’ labor with the Harvest Feast.
Toward the end of last school year Jeffers high school students planted the school’s first plants in a new garden. Before getting their hands dirty in the soil though, farm to school and middle school English teacher Amanda Andress says the school-built garden beds, started a compost pile, and repurposed the old green house.
And so we took that money and we took this space, which was totally vacant, and turned it into six raised beds. We have a pollination garden. We have a bunch of fruit trees that were just planted this year and a compost site. And so last year, once the students got the beds made, in the springtime, the students were able to actually do some planting in the ground and then start to take care for those plants. And then over the summer, they grew and… were able to start harvesting them when they returned back to school. – Amanda Andress, English and Farm to School Teacher, Jeffers High School
Yeah, it takes a while for them because they need to make sure that they can see from that start of when they planted the seed. They’re not sure if it’s going to grow or not, but when they come back and they see that what they’ve done has grown and they’re going to be able to get something, it’s very rewarding to see them learn a new skill and see that they can be successful at it. – Rachel Sondgrath, Physical Education and Health Teacher, Jeffers High School
Each student at Jeffers high school will get involved with the school’s garden at some point. Andress passes students from 7th and 8th grade courses to fellow teacher Rachel Sondgerath, who leads students on nutrition education.
This is something that they can use later in life, even if it’s not a job opportunity or avenue that they’re going to go down. They might be able to utilize this for their families and be able to grow food. We’ve also opened up the idea of our fork farms, which is our hydroponics that we have in our science classrooms that they can see how different avenues of growing food can help. – Rachel Sondgrath, Physical Education and Health Teacher, Jeffers High School
We have some zucchini, some pumpkin, so some things are still coming to and some things, you know, the students were just tasting right off the vine. The plan is to take some of these other foods, bring them into the classroom and show students different recipes and ways to process and enjoy these foods. – Amanda Andress, English and Farm to School Teacher, Jeffers High School
On Saturday Jeffers high school will invite the community to the harvest feast. The evening’s dinner will include turkey from Chassell, and desserts made by the program. As well as use ingredients sourced from local farms partnered with farm to school.
We also have a lot of produce coming from all of our local farmers. So we’re taking the farm to school concept and we’re doing a farm to table dinner. And this was sponsored by Copper Shores as a way to celebrate Farm to School Month. Let’s see, our culinary students are doing dessert. They’re doing homemade ice cream as well as homemade uh apple and blueberry crumble. And the blueberries the students
went and picked last week from Gierke’s blueberry farm. The apples will be picked this week by the students as well, locally. Then as guests finish up their dinner, they’re invited to come outside and make and take some apple cider. – Amanda Andress, English and Farm to School Teacher, Jeffers High School
Farm to school programs introduce students to agriculture, nutrition, health sciences, and much more. The highly engaging program helps students build skills and knowledge, while exploring an incredibly important part of our communities. The Harvest Feast does ask guests to register, as there are a limited number of meals available for the 4 pm and 6 pm dinner. Learn more about farm to school online.
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