Introducing the 2013 Urban Agriculture Fellows

By Alison Duncan, HON Urban Agriculture Program VISTA

The whole group poses for the camera. From left to right: Sara Shaghaghi, Lydea Adkins, Daniel Pannock, Chloe Vaccaro, Michael Ding, Janie Liu, Audaris Blades, Rachel West, Nick Dietrich, Natalie Beck, Josh Corlew, and me (Alison Duncan).

It may still be cold outside, but the Hands On Nashville Urban Agriculture Program is already heating up with the launch of our newest program: the Urban Agriculture Fellowship! This unique service-learning opportunity places ten high school students at nonprofit gardens across Nashville.

After a highly competitive application process last fall, ten outstanding young people were selected to serve as the inaugural class of Urban Agriculture Fellows. These inspiring students have already proven themselves to be real rock stars, having completed an intense two-day training session over the winter break. Throughout the spring, they will attend monthly workshops here at HON that will help them acquire the project development, volunteer management, public speaking, and organizational skills needed to become effective community leaders. Without further ado, I am very excited to introduce you to the Fellows:

The fellows get to know each other on the first day of training.

Audaris Blades – A senior at Glencliff High School, Audaris is actively involved in a number of service clubs at his school. He is also an athlete, playing on both the tennis and baseball teams at Glencliff. His fellowship project will be at the HON Urban Farm.

Chloe Vaccaro – Chloe is a junior at MLK Magnet High School. She is captain of her school softball team and participated in the Urban Farm Apprenticeship program this past summer. Chloe will be at Good Food for Good People for her fellowship project.

Daniel Pannock – Daniel is a junior at University School of Nashville. He has recently cultivated an interest in gardening through his work at the Outdoor Academy and as a member of USN’s Environmental Club. Daniel will be working at the Perk Garden.

Janie Liu – A junior at MLK Magnet High School, Janie is passionate about the environmental impacts of our food system. She swims on the MLK swim team and has a small garden at home. She will be working at the Martha O’Bryan Center.

Lydea Adkins – Lydea is a freshman at Nashville School of the Arts. She is very involved in the Harvest Hands WOW soap program and is an avid reader. Additionally, she is the oldest of seven siblings, which keeps her pretty busy. Lydea will be working at Good Food for Good People.

Michael Ding – A junior at MLK Magnet High School, Michael is a committed environmentalist. He is a core member of his school’s Green Club and is a coalition ambassador for Tennyen, a youth-led environmental group. Michael will be working at the Perk Garden.

Natalie Beck – Natalie is a junior at Brentwood High School, where she is a Student Council member. She is an artist, and often integrates her talents into whatever projects she is working on. Natalie’s fellowship placement is at the BELL Garden.

Nick Dietrich – Nick is a senior at MLK Magnet High School. He enjoys nature and being outdoors, and is interested in learning more about agriculture as a possible career path. Nick will be working at the HON Urban Farm.

Rachel West –A junior at Brentwood High School, Rachel plays a variety of sports, including lacrosse and cross country. She is interested in starting her own nonprofit, and has worked in gardens in the past. Rachel’s fellowship placement is the Martha O’Bryan Center.

Sara Shaghaghi – Sara is a junior at MLK Magnet High School, where she is a key member of her school’s swim team. She is currently pursuing her Gold Award in the Girl Scouts. Sara will be working at The BELL Garden for her fellowship project.

Stay tuned for updates on the good work these high school students will be doing this spring, including how you can get involved and support their service project.

Alison is a born and bred Tar Heel, having lived in North Carolina for most of her life. She serves as HON’s Urban Agriculture Program VISTA and oversees youth programming at the Urban Farm.  Alison can tie her shoes in 2 seconds flat.

 

Notes from the Farm: A Recipe for Positive Youth Development

By Adams Carroll, AmeriCorps VISTA Member, Urban Agriculture Program -

Chef Kristin Beringson shows Summer Camp Kids how to make fresh salsa.

Last week we were fortunate to have two esteemed visitors to Youth Service Camp at the Hands On Nashville Urban Farm. Our friends at Nashville Originals organized cooking demonstrations for our campers led by Chef Kristin Beringson of the Holland House Bar and Refuge and Chef Tony Galzin of Flyte World Dining and Wine. Both chefs came with simple, tasty recipes highlighting the astounding seasonal flavors of the produce the campers helped to grow this summer. I hope a few of our campers are inspired to try these recipes at home! Several of the campers told me they tried squash for the first time in these dishes… and they liked it!

Our campers were impressed by our guest chefs’ knife skills and infectious love for their craft. I was too, but something else really moved me. I was so inspired by the volunteer spirit that our guests exhibited. It was clear to me that they both are driven to make our community a more vibrant place to live through their service. In sharing their skills and experience in a simple cooking demonstration, these chefs did much more than toss together a tasty garden salad. They also modeled positive behavior and served as role models for our campers. I won’t be surprised if, 10 years from now, Nashville’s hottest new chef shares her story of being inspired to choose her profession because of Chef Beringson and Galzin’s

Chef Galzin shows kids how to blanch vegetables and create an easy summer salad.

service last week.

After his demonstration, I remarked to Chef Galzin that he did a really good job of engaging his youth audience during his demonstration (more photos here). He told me that as the oldest of four brothers, he learned early on how to maintain young peoples’ attention levels. However, another experience uniquely prepared him to be a good role model for young people at the Urban Farm.

Before moving to Nashville, Chef Galzin volunteered with the Spark Program in Chicago, which connects hundreds of students with apprenticeships in their dream field. It was clear to me that Chef Galzin’s experience working as a mentor with Spark taught him how to bring out the best in our youth by nurturing their curiosity and giving them opportunities to use their ingenuity, creativity, and skills to overcome challenges. I am of the opinion that our society chronically underestimates the abilities of youth. Programs like Spark give kids an opportunity to prove to themselves and the world that they are able to accomplish great things.

Inspired by the chefs, Summer Camp kids make their own salad variations and share ideas with each other.

All of this got me thinking about the principles of positive youth development – principles I had in mind when developing the curriculum for our Youth Service Camp and Apprenticeship program (Farmer Josh introduced the Apprentices back in June). I wanted to make sure that we weren’t just creating a program to keep kids busy between school semesters, but rather one that is an opportunity for young people to live purposefully by contributing to our community in meaningful ways and building valuable life skills.

If you have ever despaired for the future of this world, then I challenge you to take note of the amazing things our youth apprentices and campers have been able to accomplish when asked to take an active role in creating their experiences in an environment that is supportive and safe. Together, these young people have turned five acres of floodway into a productive, beautiful Urban Farm that grows healthy produce for members of our community who need it most. Trust me, our future is in good hands!

A native Nashvillian, Adams Carroll serves as AmeriCorps VISTA Member for HON’s Urban Agriculture Program. He oversees the development of the Urban Farm Apprenticeship and Summer Youth Service Camp program. A bicycling enthusiast and dedicated bike commuter, Adams is a volunteer with Walk/Bike Nashville, the Oasis Center, and Free Bike Shop. His longest bike ride? 3,500 miles across 14 states.

Introducing the Urban Farm Summer Apprentices

By Josh Corlew, HON Urban Agriculture Program Manager -

This week brings a very exciting new addition to the farm: our apprentices! I’m so excited about the team of eight youth apprentices that we have training with us right now. They went through a rigorous application and interview process and I’m convinced that every one of them is up to the challenging and fun season that we have ahead of us.

This summer HON Urban Farm apprentices will lead groups of up to 60 of their peers through a curriculum around agriculture, the food system, and healthy eating. They will be the leaders of our Youth Summer Camp held at the Urban Farm. I want to dedicate the rest of this post to introducing our awesome new team.

Meet the HON Urban Farm Apprentices (in alphabetical order):

Meet Ashley! She loves dance.

Ashley attends Glencliff High Schooland helps tutor math. She’s very active in dance classes and enjoys a wide variety of dance styles including tap, jazz, and ballet.

Chloe is captain of her varsity softball team.

Chloe attends MLK Academic Magnet High Schoolwhere she is active in Beta Club. A softball player, Chloe is on the varsity team where she also serves as captain.

Evie has been in several plays at her school and The Nashville Children’s Theater.

Evie attends Hume Fogg High School. She’s very interested in drama and has participated in many plays at her school as well as productions at The Nashville Children’s Theater. An active member of her church’s youth group, Evie also has helped to organize the CROP (Communities Responding to Overcome Poverty) walk for the past several years.

Jazmin aspires to be a professional chef.

Jazmin attends Glencliff High School and is all about the extracurriculars. Her resume is chocked full of participation in service and cultural groups including Latinas Unidas, Rise Above Hate, Jump Study Foundation, and United Nations, just to name a few. She offers her bilingual talents as a translator for after-school tutoring programs, and aspires to be a professional chef!

Maria is an active member of the Glencliff High garden club.

Maria attends Glencliff High school where she is very active in many clubs including the Garden Club (yay!), ITOP, Beta Club, Teens United, and United Nations. Maria has also worked with the Oasis Center and hopes to continue to grow in her leadership abilities this summer.

Maynan’s name means “shining moon.”

Maynan attends McGavock High School and has been in the U.S. for about seven years. She enjoys helping out with a Bantu summer camp in her free time. In her native country, Kenya, her name means “shining of the moon”.

Saida enjoys tutoring kids in Nashville’s Bantu community.

Saida is a student at McGavock High School. She likes to tutor kids in the Bantu community in after-school programs and is also actively involved with Catholic Charities. Saida has experience growing food from her days in Africa, and we’re excited to learn from her this summer!

TJ has experience in designing and building garden beds out of cob.

TJ has just graduated from Glencliff High School. While he was there he was a part ofthe Garden Club and an Engineering class in which he helped design and build garden beds out of cob. While TJ has many talents, one of his favorite activities is parkour.

It has been a pleasure getting to know these remarkable young people over the past week, and we are really looking forward to a rich summer of learning, growing, and teaching.

Urban Farm Progress!

By Josh Corlew
Hands On Nashville Urban Agriculture Program Manager

The past month has been such an exciting one out on the Urban Farm! Here are some of the cool things that have happened:

Two boys pair up to spread wood chips for garden pathways on Global Youth Service Day 2012. Nice work, boys.

Grand Opening! On April 21, we celebrated Global Youth Service Day by having the official launch of the Hands On Nashville Urban Farm. Hundreds of youth, Starbucks partners, and neighbors came out to show their support and volunteer. We created rain gardens, made signs for our trees and veggies, made wood chip paths, dug an irrigation ditch, and had a blast doing it!

Water access – We’ve been waiting on planting most of our vegetables until we had a reliable source of water. Just last week we got the water turned on, and now we can water all our trees, flowers, and vegetables. They are much happier now!

Compost – We’ve been experimenting with different composting containers. Here are some volunteers helping us test out the latest version:

Farmer Josh tries out a new compost method.

Planting – We didn’t waste any time getting our plants in the ground as soon as we knew we could water them! We’ve put in tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers, watermelon, kale, mustard, broccoli, cabbage, arugula, beans, corn, and a wide variety of herbs and flowers. We’ve also mulched most of our new sprouts so we can keep them cool and damp in this crazy hot weather.

Volunteers dig some paths for irrigation on the Urban Farm. The water supply is now fully here!

Apprentices – This summer we’re hiring eight youth apprentices to help us lead a curriculum-based youth camp. We’re in the final stages of selecting the apprentices, so we’ll be able to announce them soon!

There’s so much to do out at the farm, and I hope you’ll be able to join us for an upcoming project! Check out the available times for this month here.

Learn more about Hands On Nashville’s Urban Agriculture Program here.

Josh Corlew is Hands On Nashville’s Urban Agriculture Program Manager. He oversees the organization’s efforts to engage volunteers in service opportunities that empower them to gain gardening skills, learn about healthy eating choices, and help address our city’s food access issues. In 2011, Josh developed and implemented an urban garden program at PERK Urban Farm, in partnership with Trevecca University, that engaged 1,000+ volunteers and produced 700+ pounds of food on a 2.5-acre plot of land. An AmeriCorps alumnus, Josh also has a secret past life as a Trekkie (he’s a big fan of the TV series Star Trek, for the uninitiated among us), and he has been known to participate in death-defying canoe trips.

* Top and bottom photos courtesy of Betsy Mason. (Thanks, Betsy!)

Music: Tying People Together

Guest post by youth volunteer Jenny Sai

Music is one of the most beautiful forms of art and communication we have. It is something that can be shared between friends, loved ones, or even teacher and student. The beautiful thing is that it can connect two very different types of people together. I have formed a unique and close bond to these children I teach at Salvation Army. They have brightened my Tuesday afternoons countless times, without even one dull moment!

Hume Fogg sophomore Jenny Sai at Salvation Army's after-school program.

It has been my goal for these kids to realize that they can express themselves in a whole new way. I always encourage the notion that there is no right way to say how you feel. One way I helped them do this was by analyzing how artists communicate with audiences through their lyrics. We listened to pop songs such as Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” and Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” They had so much fun discussing what they thought each artist was saying. We even had an impromptu game of “freeze dance” where I attempted to dance, but only managed to embarrass myself and have them laugh at me.

The kids with their rainmakers! (Check out the video below to see them in action.)

I also wanted them to experience all ends of the musical spectrum, so of course, they had to be exposed to classical music. We listened to excerpts from Glazunov’s Seasons: Autumn and En Bateau by Debussy. Both of these compositions contain grand imagery. I had them draw a picture of the scene they imagined in their head when I played these songs. I ended with themed music and showed them how music could make a movie scary. They had to draw a picture of that too. I saw many monsters and knives and blood. It was a great breakthrough for me seeing how integrated the kids could get with the music.

Other projects I have done with them have involved making homemade instruments. I hoped that with the actual making of the instrument, they would have a more intimate idea of where these instruments came from and how they were made. One lesson I did was musical instruments of antiquity where the kids made Greek panpipes. We also made rainmakers one day. By the end, my students all appreciated the materials we usually take for granted and had a bigger view of where instruments evolved. Not only were they exposed to a variety of cultures, they also learned that music tied people together even in the earliest of times.

Jenny Sai, a sophomore at Hume Fogg High School, is one of 12 HON Youth Volunteer Corps Interns, serving in the inaugural 2011-2012 class. Each month, she plans and leads an arts- and music-focused activity that engages the children served by the Salvation Army’s after-school program.

Need inspiration? Watch HON’s new video “Be the Change”

Check out Hands On Nashville’s new creative video, featuring incredible Middle Tennessee volunteers. If you are as inspired as we are, make plans to volunteer at a local nonprofit to start 2012 off right! Visit www.HON.org to view opportunities, including ways to serve  on MLK Day weekend Jan. 14-16.

Teaching More Than Crafts at Edgehill Community Center

By Allyson Burgess

Allyson and the kids learned how to make guacamole one evening. YUM.

My experience teaching the children at Edgehill Community Center has been beyond rewarding. As I pulled into the parking lot last Friday for my monthly lesson, the kids rushed to the window and started cheering at my arrival. I will keep that precious moment forever in my memory; it made me feel like I was having as big of an impact on their lives as they were on mine.

I entered the room to find past crafts of elephant masks and decorated aprons on the walls. I always start my lesson with a brief summary of everything I have taught them so far. After a quick quiz, I introduced the December lesson: Japanese culture. In just a short hour, the kids were immersed into The Land of the Rising Sun. They all tried sushi for the first time. Some of the kids made faces when they tried it, but some of them fell in love with it. When just a few kids are able to open their minds to try something new, I know my lesson is a success.

The Edgehill kids proudly displayed their newly-constructed Elephant Masks in a recent gathering.

I also taught them how to make an origami swan, penguin, and Christmas tree for them to put on their tree at home because it is very common in Japan to use origami as ornaments. After much trial and error, the kids created something very special that had significance to them. Then, the kids decorated karate headbands before a brief fitness lesson where Japanese numbers were incorporated into a game.

The kids most-recently learned about Japanese culture. They tried sushi for the first time and applied some new fitness skills.

By comparing cultural customs, the kids find all the different countries I teach fascinating. They are starting to recognize the origin of certain American customs, and I truly believe this will be a stepping stone towards furthering their ambitions and goals for their lives ahead.

Allyson Burgess, a senior at Davidson Academy, is one of 12 HON Youth Volunteer Corps Interns, serving in the inaugural 2011-2012 class. These remarkable leaders are currently working with local nonprofits to engage young Nashvillians in educational and skill-building experiences in the arts, fitness/nutrition, and gardening/food security. Allyson leads arts/health projects at Edgehill Community Center one Friday a month.

To volunteer with these youth-led projects, visit the VolunTEEN Opportunity Calendar (volunteers must be 11 to 18). Learn more about HON’s VolunTEEN Program here. 

Youth Volunteers to Impact Poverty Through “Hunger Banquet” Service and Learning Event

On Saturday, November 5, Nashville youth ages 11 to 18 are invited to experience firsthand the disparities that exist between the developed and developing worlds by participating in HON’s Hunger Banquet, presented by Qdoba. Participants will be divided at random into high-, middle- and low-income groups representing the demographic divisions across the world, and then fed according to socioeconomic class in order to help them understand the extent of poverty and hunger worldwide. After the meal, youth will work with Second Harvest Food Bank to sort nonperishable food donations and help feed hungry Tennesseans. This food sorting project becomes even more meaningful because volunteers gain a new perspective on global hunger and poverty during the Hunger Banquet. If you’re ready to learn about hunger issues facing millions of people, and want to be part of the solution, sign up here to be one of the 65 youth volunteers who will make a difference during the holiday season.  Space is limited.

HON is proud to partner with Qdoba and their five area locations to provide food for the Hunger Banquet.