Metro Early College High School's Growing America Program was created for one reason: Career and entrepreneurial opportunities exist for city-dwelling students within Ohio's largest industry.
"The program began last year as a partnership between Metro, the PAST Foundation, the Education Council and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation," says Neal Bluel, a science faculty member at Metro and program coordinator. "The summer program teaches students about planning, growing, and marketing food products," he says. "Most important, it teaches students that viable local food enterprises can exist even with concrete all around."
"I wanted to create some projects for my classroom, and through a number of brainstorming sessions, we determined that the best idea might be to do something about local foods," Bluel says. "So, we started to develop this farm-to-market summer bridge program. And we thought it was going to be really cool to have students set up an entire farmers market and to sell their produce at a stand -- but also to bring in other producers so they could talk to them and see their products and see how this all works with local food production."
Last summer's program was so successful that the program is being repeated this year.
"Crops are grown at Ohio State University's Waterman Farm, where our students tend to all aspects of production, harvest and -- finally -- sale at a farm market. Students tend to both organic and traditional plots, calculating the amount of nutrients in the soil, watching the soil's moisture content, and make adjustments as needed. Outside vendors are welcomed into the market so that students can talk to them about how they run their businesses. And the vendors don't just include farmers, but hot dog companies, bakeries and other entrepreneurs," Bluel says.
"We need to start teaching the next generation these skills so they can have jobs of their own in these fields and be successful."
Source: Neal Bluel, Metro Early College High School
Writer: Gene Monteith