Vermont Harvest of the Month

   How do you get kids to eat their veggies? By giving them a fun and tasty introduction of course! Laraway School has pledged to be part of the Vermont Harvest of the Month program, which highlights a different piece of produce each month and encourages schools to feature the produce through taste tests, games, cooking demonstrations, and educational activities. Over 300 schools, food markets, organizations, restaurants, and hospitals have pledged in this state-wide initiative. In November, Kale was introduced at the first Farmer On-Site of the month. Students passed around a paper bag filled with the leafy green and were asked to use one adjective to describe what they felt (or smelled!)- no peeking! After the bag had been passed around in each group, the descriptive words were looked over and the guessing began. A short talk on the nutritional value of kale, the different varieties, and potential ways to cook with it followed. At lunch that day, students got to try a Kale Pesto recipe that a youth in Laraway's Substitute Care Program whipped up. When asked what students thought of the kale pesto, the response included words like "tasty", "delicious", "yummy", and quite a few thumbs up. The month of December features Winter Squash, which was unveiled paper bag guessing game style this past week at Farmer On-Site, with taste tests and educational posters in the cafeteria to follow. We are looking forward to promoting Harvest of the Month this upcoming year and connecting our youth to new, nutritious, and tasty produce!

What's in the bag?

Kale Pesto display with Harvest of the Month poster.

Article by Ginny Cooke, Land Stewardship Americorps VISTA; photos by Ginny Cooke and Cornelius Murphy, Land Steward. 

Green Mountain Farm to School Conference

      Last Wednesday, November 4, Land Stewardship staff attended the second annual Farm to School Conference hosted by Green Mountain Farm to School. The event fittingly took place at Sterling College in Craftsbury, VT, where over 70% of the school's food is procured from local, sustainable, fair trade, and humane sources via Real Food Challenge calculator guidelines. Workshops were held in the morning and included Using School Gardens as Outdoor Classrooms, in which participants were given hands-on ideas for school garden curriculum including garlic planting, bug observation, garden yoga, and the some-what challenging task of making a seed pot out of newspaper (apparently kids generally have an easier time making them than adults). Another workshop, Agriculture for Every Season, had tips on carrying land based curriculum into the winter months and included some tasty samples and butter making using a mason jar, heavy cream, and a popsicle stick. The end of the conference allowed for break out sessions, one of which focused on creating a Farm to School community of practice. Communities of practice can be defined as "groups of people who share an interest or passion for something they do and interact regularly to learn how to do it better". Laraway Land Stewardship staff are excited to be a part of the Farm to School community of practice and are looking forward to staying connected with the movement.  We are also bursting with ideas from just one day of meeting so many inspiring people and getting lots of fun Farm to School curriculum! 

Article by Ginny Cooke, Land Stewardship Americorps VISTA. Logo and photo from Green Mountain Farm to School website. 

Kryptonite Soup anyone? LaraCon comes to Laraway

    

     Twas a few days before Halloween.  Laraway School students and staff we decked out in costumes, with more than a few Super Heroes represented.  Stations were set and ready with art and learning activities.  Cafeteria staff were busy preparing a special LaraCon menu of Kryptonite Soup, Batman Burgers and Cat Woman Carrots. There were spidery Spiderman Cookies, too. Costumed administrative staff were ready to dish out candy to a Halloween Parade of Trick-or-Treaters.

     "LaraCon is a celebration to raise awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms," said Jenn LeBlanc who coordinated the event.  "It's a way to celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture."

     LeBlanc worked with fellow teachers to design LaraCon after similar, larger events held around the globe.   Atlanta has MomoCon.  Connecticut has ConnectiCon.  Massachusetts has Anime Boston.  Houston has Delta H Con.  Rhode Island has Rhody Con.  Laraway School now has LaraCon!

     Vermont-based, best-selling author Kane Gilmour (www.kanegilmour.com) and highly-regarded illustrator Matthew Sylvester (www.matthewsylvesterart.com) took time out to participate in the event.  Kane wowed everyone with his engaging talk  about creating comics inspired by established literature.  Sylvester put pen to paper, creating sketches of the kids and signing his mini-masterpieces.

Matthew Cameron donated over 150 comic books for our students and Dale Rock facilitated the donation.  

     Linking learning activities to fun is a great way to engage young people in learning.  Many hands came together to create a special and wonderful day for our students.

     "This should happen every year!!" one of our students said.  Yes, it should happen every year.

Jason Chin to visit Laraway School

     Awarding-winning children's author and illustrator Jason Chin will meet with Laraway School students on Friday, November 6th.  His latest book, Water is Water, is about the water cycle.  His earlier books, Gravity and Island: A Story of the Galapagos, were designated, respectively, as 2014 and 2013 Gryphon Honor Books by the Center for Children's Books.
     Chin's visit to Laraway School will include reading to students, talking with them about his writing process, and real-time illustration.  The event will conclude with a book giveaway.  Each student who attends will receive a brand new book to take home.
     Laraway is a recipient of a Children's Literacy Foundation (CLiF) Year of the Book Grant.  Chin's visit is one in a series of literacy activities planned for the 2015-16 school year.  We are very excited about this partnership with CLiF.  For more information on CliF, please visit www.clifonline.org.  To learn more about Jason Chin, please visit www.jasonchin.net
 
   

Painting Pumpkins and Celebrating the Harvest!

What our students said:

"I'm thankful for the fun games we have played together, and all the laughter."

"I enjoyed spending time outside, digging my hands in the soil."

"I'm thankful for the hard work we put in, and all the fresh veggies we got out of the garden."

"I think the raspberry bushes were my favorite."

     Harvest Fest, a three-day extravaganza celebrating our relationship with the land, returned for its third year.  Laraway staffer Jess McCoy spearheaded the event which was held at our Johnson campus on October 19th, 20th and 21st.

     "I think it's important for staff and students to connect with nature and our beautiful natural environment right out of the back door," McCoy said.  "It's always beneficial for students to work with their hands, and to see a sense of return in their work and process."

      Harvest Fest offered a full schedule of activities for students to engage in.  Preparing our gardens and orchard for winter rest included pruning trees and planting garlic deep in fertile soil.  We'll be repaid by tree blossoms in spring and garlic scapes for eating in summer.

     Students pressed fresh cider, gleaned from neighbors' orchards, repaying their generosity with a quart of the sweet stuff.  They even set up a "Free and donations welcomed" cider table at the top of our driveway along Route 15, giving locals and leaf peepers a chance to bring home a fresh half gallon.  

     School teams traveled to Valley Dream Farm in Cambridge where---as a community service activity---they picked and packaged 72 bunches of kale.  This proved a great way to demystify this super-healthy, sometimes underappreciated leafy green.

     "I learned that, even though I would prefer to work on a dairy farm, all farmers work very hard to be successful," one of our students said.

     Laraway offered a Harvest-themed obstacle course, cider donuts and a seasonal poem read by Greg Stefanski, our Executive Director.   Students worked with land steward staff to harvest turnips and potatoes from our gardens.  They then headed to our campus kitchen to wash, cut and cook their veggies, transforming them into healthy and hearty "fries."   

     Not to be outdone, Laraway's cafeteria staff prepared a special harvest meal featuring items from our garden.  The menu included butternut squash soup, roasted vegetable stew, homemade carrot cake and loads of veggies in the salad bar.  Throughout the growing season, kitchen staff incorporated hundreds of pounds fresh picked veggies.

     Harvest Fest truly is a chance to connect our students to the land, to the food they eat, and to the fun activities that define autumn in Vermont.

     

     

     

     

Unexpected Gifts

   

     The PEZ candy dispenser, shaped like a bunny, was passed around at a recent Laraway Development Committee meeting.  Bunny in hand, participants took turns answering the question: "Reflect on a gift you received---tangible or intangible---from working with the kids at Laraway."
     "So many of our kids want to be anonymous," a case manager said.  "When kids give me their school picture, it feels really special.  It's a sign of trust.  Sometimes we work with kids who've experienced the darkest places.  I've learned from them that, even in the darkest places, you can find light.  You're still able to experience beauty and love...and recover."
     "Patience is hard to come by, but valuable.  If kids are patient and resilient, they can find what they're passionate about," a school staffer said.  The gift is in witnessing healthy transformations and growth among the children and families we serve.
     "The work I'm doing now (helping kids find jobs in the community) is a gift," another school staffer said.  I'm able to work with kids at a point at which they're ready to give back to their community."
     The bunny, too, was a parting gift from a Laraway youth transitioning to independence.  There was no candy inside---this did not detract from the sweetness of the gesture from a young person walking a road toward healing and independence.










   

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.