Stephanie Kennedy
Community Alliance with Family Farmers
As the end of my program draws near, I cannot help but think of how many amazing experiences that have had this year. This year I was fortunate enough to be able to teach CAFF’s Harvest of the Month curriculum in 40 classes each month over the entire school year! At the end of the day, this amounted to over 1000 students. When I think about it now, I wonder, how did I make it through without completely losing it? The answer to the question is simple. If it were not for the relentless enthusiasm of my students, I may well have thrown my hands in the air.
Whether the boisterous greetings, or the almost rock star feeling that I would get when I entered the school cafeteria dressed in a carrot costume, there was no doubt in my mind that I was having some sort of impact. This never felt more true than towards the end of the school year. We at CAFF had worked tirelessly to coordinate mock farmer’s markets at each of our schools, I think it ended up up being twelve in total. By the time we got to the twelfth one, we all were a little worse for wear.
We arrived with a few produce items to share with the entire student body. The food service director had also coordinated another six items for everyone to try. I was so very excited that we would have such a variety of things. I was even more excited by the length of the line that formed at our booth. Administrators came by to take photos, because they said that no one would believe them otherwise. What really stuck with me about this day, was the comment that one of the students made when I asked how they liked what they had tried, she just replied, “it’s like a wonderland in my mouth.”