KEEPING IT FRESH FOOD LITERACY PROJECT EMPHASIZES HANDS-ON FARM BASED EXPERIENCES FOR STUDENTS thought how great it would be if there was a program where kids and teens could My great-grandparents tended a huge fruit have an authentic, hands-on experience and vegetable garden on their property, working on a vegetable farm. The Food as did my grandparents. Oh, how I loved Literacy Project began as a pilot at visiting Grandma’s house so I could plop Oxmoor Farms, and it was clear that local myself down in the middle of her strawberry youth really enjoyed the field-to-fork patch and gobble down scads of red ripe experience. berries. But my parents didn’t plant a garden, nor did I. “We consider it an invitation to participate meaningfully in a local food system. This “It seems that every generation is a little bit is why we’ve tried to shy away from giving more removed from the land,” says Carol tours or too much information,” Gunderson Gunderson, Executive Director of the Food says. “We let the experience be the driver Literacy Project. It’s a sad but true statement of the education because we know, through and one that others took note of, too. In research, that people are more likely to have fact, that’s how the Food Literacy Project a life-changing encounter if the learning is came to be. active rather than passive.” Writer / Christy Heitger-Ewing
Back in 2006, an area farmer noticed that a good number of children hadn’t a clue where their food came from so he
Gunderson maintains that it’s not so important that kids recall the names of all vegetables as it is for them to recognize the
veggies in a meaningful manner — i.e., the crunch of the radish or the bitter taste of arugula. The organization’s mission revolves around youth transforming their communities through food, farming and the land. So much of their work involves grade-school children learning to plant, harvest and cook together. “We have an outdoor classroom on a working vegetable farm so they’re engaging all of their senses by growing, harvesting and preparing healthy food together,” Gunderson says. “It really gives kids a positive experience with a vegetable, which truly an extraordinary number of people have never had.” Gunderson stresses that it’s a totally different experience to participate in
10 / MIDDLETOWN MAGAZINE / MARCH 2020 / atMiddletown.com
