Lessons in Red Lodge

Kate Jones is an MTCC AmeriCorps Summer Associate VISTA serving with the FoodCorps team in Red Lodge.

As I watch kids’ eyes grow big and round at the sight of their sprouting beets that they helped plant the week before, I feel my heart swell and know that what I’m doing is helping me to grow as a teacher and advocate, just as it is helping the garden grow.  This summer, I’m serving as an AmeriCorps Summer Associate in my own hometown of Red Lodge.  Every morning, Monday through Thursday, Alyssa Charney, my guiding AmeriCorps VISTA serving with the FoodCorps team, and I lead activities with children ranging in age from about four to ten in the newly-developed Red Lodge Youth Garden.  Every day is devoted to a particular group of children being brought to the garden by either the Children Center or Boys’ and Girls’ Club.  It’s fun to feel the different moods and personalities unique to each group of kids and to keep track of every impact they make on the garden each time they visit.  

What has struck me most through this experience so far is the kids’ enthusiasm.  When we ask them what their favorite veggies are, they almost always have something ready on the tips of their tongues.  However, many have little idea of what some vegetables even look like before they arrive on their dinner plates, but as we show and guide them around the garden on eye-opening tours, you can watch the knowledge work its way into their faces in expressions of curiosity and mild wonder.  It’s a very rewarding feeling, to know that what I’m doing is making a difference in these kids’ lives, whether it’s a small difference or a big one. 

A challenge I’ve come up against so far has been the task of scaling down all the information I want to give to these kids.  In the beginning, I wanted so terribly to teach them everything I have learned on my own these last few years about health, nature, diet, exercise, and the ways they are all connected.  I quickly discovered, however, that the things I wanted to tell them would go in one ear and out the other.  Kids don’t want to be talked at; they learn and absorb best through hands-on activities that require constant interaction.  It has been difficult for me to find ways of fitting the information I want to teach into fun activities, disguising the educational value of the lesson.  But, as the summer wears on, I’m learning what works and what doesn’t, and learning to adapt my lessons to a variety of age groups.    

Overall, I’m loving every day in the garden, and I am very thankful to have this opportunity to learn how to grow my own food, how to instill in children a fascination and excitement for vegetables, and how to work with other people in so many different ways.  I can feel myself growing in heart and experience as quickly as our Swiss chard, already overflowing in its raised bed.  

Many Hats

Anina Estrem is a Communities in Action AmeriCorps VISTA serving with the FoodCorps team in Lame Deer.


It is 3 AM, and I am out behind the Boys & Girls Club watering our vegetable garden. This is not a usual

Photo by John Youngbear

occurrence, but this is the first moment of peace I’ve found all day to check on our plants. For the last week, the Club has been acting as an Emergency Shelter for evacuees of the Ash Creek fire, 20 miles east of Lame Deer. Bathed in hazy blue smoke, the Club has become home base for the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and a donation and volunteer center. 

I’ve worn many hats during my year of service: “Compost Lady,” nutrition educator, community organizer, gardener, and now donations manager. Because of the fire, I’ve neglected the Club garden in favor of organizing donations of food, clothing, and toiletries during long nights at the shelter. Though it might not fit exactly into my AmeriCorps VISTA FoodCorps job description, I see this experience as yet another opportunity to learn what it’s like to live in this region and see the challenges these communities regularly face. 

Photo by John Youngbear

Coming from Oregon’s Willamette Valley, I grew up knowing how easy and fun local food can be. Here in Rosebud County, I’ve been exposed to the realities of rural living and the difficulty of accessing quality food. It is hard to believe until you’ve lived it and a challenge I couldn’t have dealt with without the support of my wonderful FoodCorps peers. This region has little access to anything fresh or locally grown, and people regularly drive one hundred miles to go grocery shopping. Because of this, there is little knowledge or understanding of the value of local food and has been the major stumbling block to producing in this region.

Although there were times when I was frustrated, I wouldn’t change a single thing about my experience. I have learned that every community moves at its own pace and on its own unique track, and my job has been to harness that energy into something tangible. At the Club in Lame Deer, I’m asked every day if the kids can check on their pumpkins and count the strawberries. At Rosebud School, I discovered the elementary students’ delight in eating raw kale. The Hysham community organized a Bountiful Baskets distribution site, getting one step closer to eliminating the food desert they live in. All of these communities have found their own paths to improving knowledge about healthy food.

My time in Montana is quickly winding down, but I am not stopping here. I will continue to work as a FoodCorps service member in eastern Oregon this August at the North Powder Charter School, where I am excited to face new challenges in a new region. I will be sad to leave eastern Montana, but I am confident that the lessons I’ve learned here will carry me through a continuing career as a local foods activist.

***Donations can be made for fire relief through the Boys & Girls Club PayPal account at bgcncn@gmail.com***

I’ve Heard of Boulder, Colorado, but Boulder, Montana?

Brynn Waylonis is an MTCC AmeriCorps Summer Associate VISTA serving with the FoodCorps team in Boulder, MT.

Locally grown lettuce from the greenhouse

I never would have guessed that I would be spending my summer in Boulder, Montana helping out with the 21st Century Program at Boulder Elementary, as I am originally from Central City, PA.  Since being here I have discovered what mountains truly are, and I have learned to live in a cabin with no indoor running water.  

Part of my job includes maintenance at the Youth Garden and greenhouse near the elementary school.  You can usually find me weeding and watering when I’m in the garden.  The best experience I’ve had so far was when I was transplanting tomatoes and some local kids were walking by and wanted to help.  Seeing kids say that they “love to help people” just does my heart so much good.  My intention from that day turned from solely getting the job done while enjoying myself to making sure that the kids also had fun doing their assigned tasks.  Surprisingly, the hardest part of having the kids help out is making sure that they all got an equal turn to do what they wanted to do.  The kids helped me transplant tomatoes, move the transplanted tomatoes inside the greenhouse, plant beans, plant radishes, and water the tomatoes and other plants.

Isaiah, a student helper, cutting cucumbers

It is currently the second week of the Boulder 21st Century Community Learning Center’s summer program, and so far most of my time has been spent in the kitchen preparing meals and cleaning up.  Each day I work with student helpers and my supervisor, Lea Howe, to make sure that the food gets to the kids in time for lunch.   One day I asked a girl what her favorite part of the meal was, and she said “the salad”.  Surprisingly, a lot of the kids in the program seem to like the salad, and I believe this is because they help us harvest the lettuce.

Our main challenge is getting the food into a form that the kids will eat and having some parents tell us that their kids don’t like the meals.  There are naturally some foods that the kids will not like, but the main thing when it comes to what they will eat is the delivery.  For instance, we served pizza that had a sauce containing spinach.  A lot of kids who did not like spinach still ate the meal because they like eating pizza.
 

 The summer program is as much of a learning process for me as it is for the kids.  If kids are exposed to nutrition at a younger age, they are more likely to continue with that lifestyle when they get older.  I was not exposed to a healthy lifestyle when I was young and mostly ate processed foods.  In high school, I tried to develop a healthy lifestyle, but it was hard to maintain since my family preferred their current diet.  So, when I got into college I continued to eat a lot of processed foods and became a caffeine junkie.  Here, I have been exposed to healthy recipes and realized that it is not necessarily more expensive to lead a healthy lifestyle if you get your food from the right places.  In Boulder, it seems like people are really open and willing to share their produce with others.

Enjoying breakfast

The transition from Pennsylvania to Montana has so far been a positive one.  I have met some amazing people and look forward to meeting more community members and continuing to learn more throughout the summer.