Americorps at Laraway!

Our new AmeriCorps VISTA Ginny Cooke at work in the fields!

This article was originally written for the Vermont Youth of Tomorrow (VYT) AmeriCorps newsletter:

  My name is Ginny Cooke and I am serving as an AmeriCorps VISTA at Laraway Youth and Family Services. Laraway is located in rural Johnson, VT and is a non-profit dedicated to serving youth and families in the state through strengths-based approaches and therapeutic methods. Laraway offers a special education K-12 school, a residential foster care program, and an after-school program. The Laraway offices and school are located on 39 acres of formerly agricultural land. One goal of the organization is to use the land as a tool for healing and personal development for the youth in their programs. My position as a VISTA is to help develop programs that connect youth to the land and maintain the ½ acre onsite farm.

   Upon graduating from Clark University in Worcester, MA two years ago with a degree in Environmental Studies, I had a yearning to travel and discover new horizons (aka head west!). I had fallen in love with farming during my college years volunteering on urban farms and decided to continue learning more about growing plants through farm work trades. I ended up in the mountains of Northern California, the Hawaiian island of Kauai, and an old mining town turned adventure destination in the bush of Alaska, planting seeds and harvesting veggies all the while. After two years of feeding my wanderlust, I felt compelled to get back into non-profit work, another love I had found in college organizing a campaign with Real Food Challenge. I had heard about the Ameriorps program from friends and family who participated and decided to look into some of the position descriptions. Lo and behold, a position that combined my desire to return to the non-profit world and my love of gardening appeared and I found myself in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

    One of the reasons I am so interested in growing food is that I see it a very empowering and healing activity. There is a lot of disconnect between people and the food we consume in our modern society. Through my year of service at Laraway, I hope to help the youth in our programs gain a sense of connection to their food and feel competent growing their own gardens. With food insecurity and physical as well as mental health being so closely tied to issues of poverty, I see my position as a bridge for youth to access healthy foods and recreation that hopefully they can carry on into adulthood.

                                    

AmeriCorps engages more than 75,000 Americans in intensive service each year at nonprofits, schools, public agencies, and community and faith-based groups across the country. Learn more at http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps.