The Yea Corps Summer Project was filled with fun, hard work, and a prolific harvest. The Edina Chowen youth group put up a well demonstrated and executed presentation to Edina’s Park Board and City Council for a small amount of green space for their organic garden in a local park. The Park Board passed it, but the City Council voted it down, even for the year 2010. They favor a city wide policy to projects.
The tenacious group of Valley View Middle School 9th graders persisted and planted the garden in the back yard of YEA Corps’ Executive Director. The kids cut grass, tilled the soil and created an awesome garden landscape plan. They met with community merchants seeking donated materials to make their garden plan a reality. Thanks go out to Dave from Edina Hardware, who donated much of the needed garden materials. Home Depot and Bachman’s donated compost and materials. Chipotle fed the troops on a hot day in late May as the team planted their 16′x16′ garden. The garden was planted with tomatoes (5 varieties), peppers, carrots, basil, cilantro, and bush beans that would be sold at the YEA Corps stall at the Mill City Farmers Market.
The youth cared for the garden throughout the summer - weeding, watering and thinning the carrots. The kids gained an appreciation for farmers and gardeners who grow nutritious food. They also began to see the value of organic food that is more nutritious and sustainable and has a good price.
In August, the youth focused on business and marketing planning in preparation for selling the product at the farmers market. They found the planning phase to be not as much fun as tending the garden, but a necessary step in a successful business venture! This required team work and commitment, not easy for 14 year olds during their lazy days of summer. They did a tremendous job, and their business plan was fabulous with each student owning a different segment of the process according to their interest and talents. We had a technology committee, a display committee, and a marketing/pricing committee. The marking/pricing committee enjoyed visiting co-ops and other retailers that sell organic product.
Mother Nature provided us with a very dry and cool beginning to the growing season. By August, all of the tomatoes were still green! One of our youth, JP, has an interest in cooking and is quite a fan of the Food Network station. It was his idea to make fried green tomatoes for sampling at the farmers’ market. He found a tasty recipe on the Food Network website and spent a day cooking. The panko breadcrumbs proved to be the key ingredient. Our intern thought they were so good that he encouraged us to sell them.
Harvest day was exciting in that the carrots would finally be revealed. We had enough green tomatoes, carrots, and basil to have a full table at the market. The harvest day was filled with hard work and leaders emerged. Thank you Arin for the assembly station ideas for picking, cleaning and bunching the produce for an attractive sales table. The youth were quick with ideas on how to lessen the work required. They found the best tool for washing the dirt off carrots to be tooth brushes. New of course! Despite process improvements, they still had a lot of work to do and ended up calling their friends to help. The harvest day wrapped up with a celebration by a bonfire, making s’mores.
Not much sleep was had by any of us as we gathered the next morning at 5 AM - more appreciation for farmers! Our stall was very attractive with the beautiful hand painted sign by Lily, fresh flowers and hanging baskets. The sale was a huge success. Customers who hailed from the south were thrilled to find our fried green tomatoes. The youth worked the crowd and demonstrated stellar sales skills. We sold everything!
Luckily September provided us with enough warmth for the peppers to grow and our tomatoes to turn red, so we had another successful sale.
This group created two compost sites next to the garden and made a “How to Create a Compost Bin” video. They reproduced video on CD for sale. It is also available on YouTube. They volunteered and conducted a composting workshop at the Edina Day of Service/Global Climate Day of Action on Oct. 24.
This was an amazing, dedicated group of youth volunteers who learned a great deal while connecting with community partners. The project leader and YEA Corps’ Executive Director, Mary Helen, was amazed at all their dedication and talents. She truly felt that every one of the youth grew during the project. They used their unique talents and learned new skills that will benefit them in their future careers and set the groundwork for them to lead a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. Mary Helen envisions organic gardens growing in pots in the kids dorm rooms during college and backyard gardens throughout their adult lives.