Celebrating Girls’s Work with Vegetation within the Rogue Valley: Rebecca Slosberg
Photograph courtesy of RVF2S Fifth-grade college students from Orchard Hill Elementary College in Medford make farm-fresh vegetable soup throughout a discipline journey to Hanley Farm in Central Level.
Photograph by Rhonda Nowak Rebecca Slosberg of Rogue Valley Farm to College helps out college students at Phoenix Elementary plant seeds in raised beds within the college backyard. The children get weekly backyard time via the Farm to College program.
Photograph by Rhonda Nowak Rogue Valley Farm to College training director Rebecca Slosberg within the backyard at Phoenix Elementary College. RVF2S works with all three faculties within the Phoenix-Expertise College District.
Editor’s notice: That is one in a collection of tales about girls gardeners within the Rogue Valley.
“We will´t know what we haven´t been taught.”
— Barbara Kingsolver, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A 12 months of Meals Life,” 2007
Barbara Kingsolver tells a narrative about Malcolm, a child who used to hold round her husband, Steven’s, vegetable backyard. Steven lived within the metropolis on the time, and his backyard was one thing of a neighborhood curiosity, notably for Malcolm who “had a love-hate factor with the concept of greens touching the filth.”
In the future, Steven pulled a carrot out of the earth and confirmed it to Malcolm and his associates. He instructed the boys that carrots are roots, and he requested them if they may consider different meals that is likely to be root greens.
Kingsolver writes, “Malcolm checked together with his friends, utilizing a lifeline earlier than confidently submitting his remaining reply: ‘Spaghetti?’”
We will’t know what we haven’t been taught.
It was 15 years in the past that Kingsolver wrote “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle,” a chronicle of her household’s one-year experiment with consuming solely regionally produced meals. These days, my guess is there are a lot of school-aged youngsters in city and suburban communities who might reply Steven’s query appropriately, and one purpose is due to applications like Farm to College.
The F2S motion began within the late Nineties as a grassroots program in California when a handful of oldsters and educators determined to do one thing concerning the rising ranges of processed meals served in class cafeterias and the rising ranges of weight problems amongst school-aged youngsters.
Twenty-five years later, the USDA Farm to College Census reported that greater than 42% of the nation’s faculties — 23.6 million college students — have participated in F2S applications. As well as, the USDA estimated that $789 million has been spent via the F2S initiative on procuring regionally produced meals from farmers.
Farm to College applications have been rising in Oregon. In keeping with the 2019 USDA F2S Census, there are 958 collaborating faculties in our state, with greater than 431,000 college students served. Eighty-nine p.c of the collaborating faculties serve regionally produced meals, 67% present meals and diet training, and 45% of the colleges have edible gardens that additionally function out of doors lecture rooms.
We’re lucky to have Farm to College applications within the Rogue Valley. RVF2S is a woman-led group with the mission of training children about our meals system via hands-on farm and backyard actions. I just lately met up with training director Rebecca Slosberg within the backyard at Phoenix Elementary, one among eight collaborating faculties within the Phoenix-Expertise and Central Level college districts.
The children had been studying the way to plant seeds and measure distance between rows in a few of the raised backyard beds. Main the group was RVF2S educator Alicia Loebl, assisted by intern Luke Thomason. Alicia gives weekly backyard time for every class at Phoenix Elementary, and works with lecturers to assist them incorporate gardening into the curriculum.
“We’ve realized that it’s actually useful for lecturers to be out within the backyard with their college students,” Rebecca stated. “With the [RVF2S] backyard educator within the lead, the classroom lecturers have a possibility to work together with their college students in a extra casual means.”
Rebecca identified that backyard time gives social and emotional, in addition to educational, advantages. “A backyard is such a peaceful, nurturing place to be. It’s empowering for college students to discover ways to develop their very own meals and to have one thing they really feel chargeable for. College students discover ways to work collectively to perform gardening duties.”
The kids additionally get to eat the meals they develop. Every month, college students harvest their crops and the backyard educator units up a tasting desk so college students can vote on their favorites. “Youngsters will say they don’t like greens, nevertheless it’s completely different once they assist choose them recent from the backyard,” Rebecca stated.
Actually it helps that RVF2S harvest educator Deanna Waters-Senf is a inventive chef and a whiz at getting ready recent greens in new methods for college students to attempt.
The Farm to Cafeteria program is a collaboration between RVF2S and native farmers to offer recent, regionally produced meals in class cafeteria meals. Not solely does this system assist children in growing healthful consuming habits, it additionally helps native meals growers and companies.
Through the 10 years Rebecca has labored with RVF2S, she’s seen the Farm to Cafeteria program develop considerably, however she admits it’s nonetheless an “uphill battle to make adjustments in class meals.”
I requested Rebecca how she got here to be concerned with RVF2S. “The outside was at all times my comfortable place,” she stated, which led to an curiosity in taking pure science courses as an undergraduate at Humboldt State College, the place she earned a level in anthropology. She labored with the Nationwide Park Service as a ranger main interpretive hikes and nature applications, after which as an educator at an outside science-based college in San Luis Obispo, California.
Rebecca moved to the Rogue Valley to finish her grasp’s diploma in environmental training at Southern Oregon College. For her thesis, she carried out a survey to be taught extra about environmental education schemes in our space, and that’s when she grew to become concerned with RVF2S.
In the future she introduced a gaggle of excessive school-aged boys in foster care to Eagle Mill Farm in Ashland so they may harvest greens and cook dinner a meal with them. “Seeing how a lot the boys loved it, watching them choose the meals, make it and eat it, had a big impact on me,” Rebecca recalled. “I knew then that doing this type of work is the place I needed to go.”
A decade later, Rebecca nonetheless loves her work, which has transitioned from school-based educator to supervisor and director roles. “It’s been an important journey,” Rebecca stated. “Anytime I get down, I am going right into a backyard and see the children. It’s such a worthwhile factor to have the ability to carry to the scholars.”
Discover out extra concerning the Rogue Valley Farm to College applications at www.rvfarm2school.org. Take a look at extra of my dialog with Rebecca on the January episode of my podcast “Celebrating Girls’s Work with Vegetation within the Rogue Valley” at https://mailtribune.com/podcasts/the-literary-gardener.
Rebecca’s favourite plant
“The vine maple (Acer circinatum) is one among my favourite crops. It’s Oregon’s native model of the Japanese maple. Vine maples’ vibrant inexperienced shade is amazingly lovely. It’s a riparian plant that grows close to streams, so it gives advantages to the ecosystem. It’s hardy and adaptable. Typically we begin off our backyard educator conferences by asking everybody what plant they’re feeling like that day. Once I’m feeling good, I say I’m feeling like a vine maple.”
Inspiring backyard literature
“I like to learn Barbara Kingsolver’s books. I take pleasure in how she weaves her science background into the tales, and her mind-set about crops and the pure world actually resonates with me. I’ve additionally been impressed by Robin Wall Kimmerer’s e book “Braiding Sweetgrass.” Her background as a botanist and an Indigenous individual, and her mind-set concerning the connection between people and crops, is basically inspiring to me.”
Inspiring girls
“As everybody is aware of, these previous two years have been extraordinarily difficult, however one of many silver linings for me has been collaborating in a variety of on-line workshops and courses the place I’ve been capable of meet colleagues within the F2S world from all around the nation. It’s been essentially the most inspiring factor to me to work together with all of those superb girls who’re so inventive and keen about bringing gardens and gardening experiences to college students.”
Rhonda Nowak is a Rogue Valley gardener, trainer and author. Electronic mail her at Rnowak39@gmail.com.
