Wow, I can’t believe that we have already completed eight weeks of this internship. Summer is truly flying by, and I am somehow still experiencing something new every day. From attending my first staff meeting to assisting with a program at my old elementary school, this week was no different.
On Monday, I traveled to Route 40 Elementary School to host a program on composting. The kids really enjoyed this lesson, as they got to dig in the dirt and cheer on a worm race, made very official by my mentor. In the afternoon, we went back to the office to join the staff meeting. This was the first staff meeting that I have gotten to sit in on, and it was very interesting to learn all about the happenings of the office. After our meeting, I started working on labeling and refilling two of our seed libraries for the local libraries in our area. These seed libraries allow people to grab free seeds of various varieties and reduce common cost or access barriers to gardening.
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| An image from our composting program at Route 40 Elementary. The kids were having a lot of fun digging around in the dirt for worms! |
Tuesday was another fun day, starting with a Nourishing Neighbors giveaway in the morning. Nourishing Neighbors is a local organization that partners with farmers to create boxes of fresh produce. Then, these boxes are given away for free to community members. There are many of these giveaways scheduled for the next few months in various communities across Garrett and Allegany counties, and I plan to help with a few more during this internship. In the afternoon, I finished sending out some certificates for one of my coworkers and continued to work on organizing things for the county fair.
With Wednesday came more fair prep. The Allegany County Fair is next week, so our office has been very busy getting everything ready. I worked on inputting the early entry forms into our online system before the computers were taken to the fairgrounds. Later in the day, I worked on printing and completing the canning presentation I have been working on. We then took this presentation out to the fairgrounds to set up so that it can be displayed throughout the next week. We will also be bringing some examples of appropriate and inappropriate canning tools, such as jars and lids. I am glad that this project has finally come to fruition, and I hope that it is something that can be used in future years as well.
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| Our table at the Nourishing Neighbors event! We gave away free seeds and calendars along with teaching people about container gardening. |
I returned to Garrett County on Thursday to help with a pollinator program at my old elementary school, Yough Glades. It felt weird to go back to this school, and all of the rooms were much smaller than I remembered. For the program, we had three different stations set up throughout the day to teach students about pollinators, how we can support pollinator populations, and the role that pollinators play in our food system. Izzy and I led a demonstration with strawberries in which the kids were able to extract the DNA from strawberries and talk through how fruits and vegetables grow. This was a fun program for the students and a good way to reunite with some of my former teachers.
I wrapped up my week by continuing to prepare for the fair. We have a busy week ahead of us, and I am looking forward to experiencing all of the quirks that come along with it.
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