Stella Pfau
Lilly Summer Discernment Institute
Jones Valley Teaching Farm
Executive Summary
26 July 2011
This summer I interned at Jones Valley Teaching Farm in my hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. Jones Valley is a 501© (3) non-profit organization that in the last 10 years has successfully transformed over 3 acres of vacant downtown property into an organic teaching farm. Agriculture and nutrition education programs serving schools, youth organizations and communities are implemented across Jefferson County. In past years more programs were offered to adults ranging from how to start a community garden to workshops about basic organic gardening techniques. The organization went through a financial crisis, which resulted in a switch in executive directors, a loss of some staff, the joining of new staff, a decision to no longer farm on the larger site, and a focus more on education than farming. What two programs remain include the Seed to Plate program and the Delicious Nutritious program.
I worked Monday through Friday, most days teaching the Seed to Plate program. In this program K-8 kids from the greater Birmingham area would come to the farm for 2.5 hours and receive a farm and kitchen lesson. The farm lesson offered this summer included plant anatomy and function, good bugs bad bugs, soil science, or food systems. The lessons were geared towards inquiry based learning, encouraging kids to explore and learn by themselves with private eyes and scavenger hunts or through small group assignments. I was s given full responsibility to be the teacher for the farm side of the program because I requested it and because of my long history with the farm, years of farm experience and because of my studies at Sewanee in Ecology and Biodiversity. After the farm lesson kids were divided and harvest available crops that were then taken to the kitchen to be prepared into a healthy snacks. The most common snacks we made included salsa, pesto pizzas, pesto pasta, fruit smoothies, and yogurt dip with dippers such as lemon cucumbers and carrots. In the kitchen another college intern (Julia Legrand who was a nutrition major) was in charge of being the teacher and along with directing the kids on how to chop vegetables, and also gave a nutrition lesson as well. When we were not teaching we were planning more lessons, creating interactive visuals, working on informative and interesting facts about all the vegetables the farm was growing or helping out in the field when weeding or harvesting needed to be done.
I worked under multiple supervisors, particularly Katie Lannon and Bree Garrett. Katie and Bree in the fall did what Julia and I did this summer, they were the teacher for the farm and teacher in the kitchen respectively. Katie was a wonderful teacher and mentor but unfortunately is leaving us because of an offer she can’t refuse back home in California. I also worked under the executive director Grant Brigham who is a great leader and fundraiser and who I believe will lead Jones Valley into a better place. I spent the most time reflecting with Katie, Grant and Charlie Hunter (my boyfriend who works on the production side of the farm) about my past and current experiences with the farm and whether or not I should stay aboard in the coming years.
This internship helped solidify my suspicion that I will end up being a teacher for young children, and will probably work for JVTF when I graduate. For the past 6 years I have had a passion for the environment but in particular a passion for sustainable agriculture. This passion along with the skill and joy of teaching made my summer very enjoyable. I realized too that by keeping up the connections I had made on the farm they trusted me and gave me responsibilities to grow as an educator and as a person. I still need to learn a lot, but am eager and hopeful.