Erin, one of our AmeriCorps Members shared this story:
One of the brilliant things about gardening is that it inevitably turns into an exercise in patience. You prep garden beds in the fall, order seeds in the winter, plant in the spring, tend all summer, and then FINALLY you enjoy your harvest the next fall. Which makes it all the more relevant for our youngest generation of instant gratification driven kids. Yes, working in the garden is hard work (but fun work too!) Yes, we are doing this work for a reason. Yes, it is going to take a while, but we will get a payoff!
At Common Threads Farm this fall, that payoff was our 5th Annual Harvest Dinner on October 16. Kids from all of our partner schools and their families joined together, bringing fresh produce harvested from our 13 partner school gardens, to cook a meal for the community. What was on the menu? Roasted squash soup, kale salad, roasted root vegetables, and apple crisp. At Common Threads, we've realized that when kids are engaged in the journey of food from planting to harvesting to cooking, they are much more likely to be excited about eating. The kid-prepared food got rave reviews from kids and parents alike, and by the end of the night, almost every plate was clean!
Perhaps more exciting, though, than seeing kids get excited about vegetables, was the outpouring of community support for what we as AmeriCorps do for our community. This year, we had around 200 kids, families, and community members join us for dinner, games, and music. It was a wonderful reminder that this community believes that our mission of connecting kids to healthy foods through hands on seed to table education is worth celebrating!
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