It Just Takes a Spark

Nicki Jimenez is a Service Member in Ronan. 

I walked into the kitchen at Polson’s Cherry Valley Elementary School on June 12^th fully expecting just to say a cheerful “hey!” to the wonderful food service staff and chat about how their summer food program was going. I was barely even planning to bring up local sourcing. But after exchanging greetings, JB dove right in, asking me “so what have you got right now?”

Timeless Organic Petite Crimson Lentils!
Image Source: www.timelessfood.com

I was floored—and excited! Here was someone who wanted to do local sourcing and all I had to do was show up. My presence got the juices flowing, aided tremendously by all the work last year’s Service Member Lindsay Howard did to bring JB and her summer program on board with local sourcing. I wasn’t prepared to talk specifics on that day, but over the next couple of weeks, JB and I developed processes and added local products to the menu. This summer, JB will be mixing organic Montana lentils into her ground beef using a 50-pound bag of Petite Crimson lentils donated by Timeless Seeds and my Lentil Cooking Guide. She’ll be serving local produce—starting with lettuce and tarragon for a homemade salad dressing—enabled by the Western Montana Growers Cooperative which is adding Polson to their regular call list and delivering right to the school. I’m looking forward to encouraging Polson to transition these local sourcing practices into the regular school year.

This is one example of an important lesson I’ve been learning this year: making change in a community often starts with just a spark—a simple personal connection by email, phone, or visit. I never know when I’m going to be the spark until I try and see if it catches.

 

Fourth graders point out features of a map of local food
on the Flathead Reservation.

As a FoodCorps Service Member being tasked with making change in my community, the common perception might be that I’m the spark igniter. In fact,  it is often the community that sparks me into action! One day in April I received an email from Andrew, an NRCS Soil Conservationist and small farmer in the Mission Valley, asking me if I wanted to have a station at Lake County Conservation District’s 4^th Grader Ag Days. I hadn’t heard of this event, but I was beyond thrilled at the opportunity to reach so many students with an activity on local food.

In only 10-15 minutes with each group of fourth graders, FoodCorps Service Member Katie Wheeler and I led the students through a whirlwind introduction to local food and why it’s important.  The kids learned that most of the Flathead Reservation’s agricultural products are consumed somewhere else, that farmers grow food that’s consumed locally on diversified farms, that these farmers sell their food at farmers markets and through Western Montana Growers Cooperative, and that kids get to eat food directly from farmers when they buy from the farmers market and at school when lunch or snack is sourced from the co-op. We discussed why eating local food is important, demonstrating how local food keeps money locally, food fresher and healthier, and the environment cleaner.

The activity used two interactive Velcro boards where the
students imagined their own diversified farm and
mapped the Flathead Reservation's local food system.

At Fourth Grader Ag Days Katie and I taught 300 kids foundational concepts about local food. I witnessed kids (and the accompanying adults) reacting with surprise to facts like how far food travels to the store (1,500 miles), or how much of every dollar farmers get when we buy food at the store (15 cents), or even how we don’t know if the beef we buy from the store is one of the many cows raised in our valley. Fourth Grader Ag Days was one of the most meaningful experiences of my service and it all happened because I got the spark.

Sparks transform latent interest and preliminary ideas into action. They light the fires which make change in a community and spread embers that may be rekindled sometime in the near or distant future. Now that I realize it just takes a spark, I’ll give and receive them even more freely to make things happen in my community.

Summertime... And the Gardening is Easy

Natasha Hegmann is a service member in Ennis. 

This Monday snuck up on me like quicksand: a slow and unexpected sink. I rolled out of bed with no particular urgency -- no early morning class to prepare for, no school bells ringing, not even one frantic email from a teacher. A glance at my Google Calendar failed to produce the usual rainbow-colored anxiety headache. By noon I had pulled off a leisurely pumpkin planting with a group of preschool students, but then became mired in emails and long-procrastinated projects in the afternoon.

Service Site Supervisor, Janet Dochnahl, assists campers with an
industrial salad spinner!

Adjusting to life without the dependable structure of school and classrooms has been a steep learning curve since school let out at the end of May. There is still plenty to do, the difference is in my approach. Working with kids outside of the school year is a whole different bailiwick. Instead of coming in with a planned lesson and learning objectives I prepare a general theme, an idea for an activity, or a project that needs to get done in the garden.

For example, our last after school Garden Club activity of the year was to make a “weed salad.” Abundant rain and sun had created quite a weed issue at that point: lamb’s quarter was popping up between the perennials, volunteer sunflowers were sprouting in vegetable beds, and red orach (or miner’s spinach) was springing out of the gravel and mulch around raised beds. We showed the different weeds to students and explained which ones were edible. 

Ennis campers have a go at making their own
garlic chive dressing!

Harvesting a salad turned out to be much more fun than just picking weeds, and the students went on pulling until the garden looked almost spotless. We topped the greens with a homemade garlic chive vinaigrette and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. The students went wild. Weed salad quickly became the most popular cooking project of the year.

Another summer project I’ve been working on is planning Kids Corner activities for our weekly Farmers Market. Teaching kids about gardening and food at a farmers market poses some challenges when compared to classroom teaching. Families come and go throughout the market, youngsters of all ages are likely to to be interested in market activities, and the teaching space is always prone to the elements -- rain, hot sun, and high winds can swiftly end any fun activity.

I have found, practically by accident, that open-ended, creative projects work well in this setting. Last Friday I brought one of the school’s four worm composting bins down to the market with examples of food items worms like to eat. What I thought was a last-minute, poorly thought out activity proved to be a hit. Just minutes after the market bell rang I found myself engulfed in a sea of children clamoring to see, hold, and feed worms. I taught younger kids about worm anatomy (ie. this is the worm’s head), and I taught older kids about the different worm “food groups” and how they relate to human nutrition. The most rewarding part of the activity was seeing children marvel at the wriggling worm in their palm and helping kids learn to care for a living creature.

In Ennis we’re relaxing into learning for the summer. Free from homework and the limits of a 15 minute recess break, the kids and I are spending more time each day tending to the basic needs of the garden. We’re asking questions, playing games, and quietly observing and appreciating the beauty of the natural world in our valley.

Cooking with Veggies in Kalispell!

Katie Wheeler is a Service Member in Kalispell.

Every Tuesday in April and May, I taught an after school cooking class to six 5th graders at Edgerton Elementary with a fellow Kalispell AmeriCorps member.  These kids were the absolute best.

When being taught about the value of buying local, they listened.  When asked to give the egg salad--made with Greek yogurt instead of mayonnaise--a try, they not only agreed, but proceeded to eagerly plead for more. When asked to add just a bit more spinach to their mini-lasagnas, they added A LOT more.  

During this cooking class series, we also made homemade ricotta and sauce for the lasagna, biscuits from scratch with homemade butter, and spent an entire class cooking eggs in a variety of ways paired with other healthy and delicious recipes.

However, it was our most recent class that was the cherry on top of our students’ awesomeness!  Up to that point, we had made some vegetable-heavy dishes, yet the veggies were never the focal point of the dish.  So this time, we did just that.  We made roasted asparagus (from Lowdown Farm of the Western MT Grower’s Cooperative), baked sweet potato fries, and kale chips!  (See recipes below!)  We wanted to ensure that our students understand that veggies are delicious and can stand on their own as a main course. 

Each of the dishes we cooked were voraciously gobbled up by the students.  One student exclaimed, “These are SO good!!  Can we save some for my mom and sister?!” Unfortunately, we could not restrain ourselves and proceeded to consume every last bite.  

My favorite part of the class was when a student’s little brother came in early and he got to “eat himself” because his name is Kale!  Of course, everyone got a big kick out of that! When his sister commented that “we are what we eat, after all,” the saying had never rung truer.

Baked Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients
Olive oil

Sweet potatoes

Desired seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic, cayenne, chili pepper, onion, paprika etc.)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees

2. Cut sweet potatoes into 1/4-inch long slices, then 1/4-wide inch strips
2. In a large bowl toss sweet potatoes with just enough oil to coat

3. In small bowl mix together desired seasoning

4. Sprinkle cut potatoes with seasoning

5. Spread sweet potatoes in single layer on a baking sheet, being sure not to overcrowd

6. Bake until sweet potatoes are tender and golden brown, turning occasionally, about 20 minutes

Oven Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients

Asparagus

Olive oil

Sea salt

Fresh ground pepper

Desired seasoning (garlic, cayenne, chili pepper, onion, paprika etc.)

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees

2.  Wash the asparagus thoroughly

3.  Stack a bunch together and cut off the tough/thick bottom inch or so

4.  Spread out the asparagus in a single layer on a rimmed baking sheet

5.  Pat it as dry as you can, as you don’t want any water to “steam” the asparagus in the oven

6.  Generously drizzle olive oil all over the asparagus

7.  Sprinkle the asparagus generously with sea salt.

8.  Grind fresh pepper on top

9.  Put the pan into a PREHEATED 425-degree oven for approximately 10 minutes

Baked Kale Chips

Ingredients

Kale
Olive oil
Sea salt, to taste

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 300°F

2.  Rinse and dry the kale

3.  Remove the stems

4.  Cut or rip into large pieces

5.  Toss with olive oil in a bowl then sprinkle with salt.

6.  Arrange leaves in a single layer on a large baking sheet

7.  Bake for 20 minutes, or until crisp