"Do you want to cut them yourself?" offered Farm Manager Amanda Brown, holding out a pair of scissors. "I'll show you how..."
With scissors in hand, and after some initial hesitation, two teens from the Brattleboro Boys & Girls Club (BBGC), made their own bouquets choosing and clipping sustainably grown flowers from the "Pick-Your-Own" section of our UMass Student Farm.
"We're here to see how hands-on experience leads to a strong learning environment,"
said chaperone and Brattleboro Teen Center Director Julia Menges. "And to get an explanation of how the Stockbridge School agriculture program works, and what careers a degree in Sustainable Food & Farming can lead to."
Their trip to the Agricultural Learning Center is part of a BBGC career and college exploration program for students in grades 6 through 12. The program helps them to "build goals" and "try to move towards these goals in preparation for life after high school," explains Menges.
In addition to the hands-on experience of preparing flowers fresh from the field, they learned about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), a business structure in which local customers support the farm during summer by purchasing a share of the future produce for around $400. When the Fall harvest starts, those same customers visit weekly to collect 25-pound crates of freshly picked organic vegetables, all through the season.
Student toured parts of the farm devoted to a "Pick-Your-Own" program for CSA members, admired a view of the distant Adirondacks from the site of a future outdoor gazebo classroom, visited with some turkeys, and observed the natural herd-behavior of grazing sheep.
They also learned about the 2-year and 4-year degree options in Sustainable Food & Farming, available on the UMass Amherst campus through the Stockbridge School of Agriculture.
At Stockbridge, a series of courses in Student Farm Management puts 12 college students in charge of all decisions at the UMass Student Farm. With oversight by long-time Farm Manager Amanda Brown, and using the written records of prior farm students to guide them, they do market research on potential crops during winter, determine what and how much to grow, and purchase and plant seeds in Spring.
Students in the Stockbridge Farming Program are assigned their own plot of farmland, where they each take charge of three specific crops, from seed to plate.
Some students choose to gain additional experience farming their crops over summer in paid positions. In Fall, the students pursue sales to the UMass Dining Commons, and Big Y Grocery stores, wash and sort produce for distribution to CSA members, and donate any leftover crops to community food pantries and hunger relief organizations.
Sustainable Food & Farming students often complete additional internships at various farming or food businesses, adding a variety of experience to their resumes before graduating from UMass Amherst, the #1 university in the U.S. for Agricultural Sciences.
The connection between Stockbridge and the local community group from Vermont was forged by Phoebe Ray, an alum of the Stockbridge School, and its Sustainable Food & Farming degree program. Ray had fond memories of the program, and reached out to Brown while working as a Youth Development Professional at he Boys & Girls Club Teen Center.
"The student farm was an incredible experience and it's all thanks to Nikki Burton, Amanda Brown, and Jason Dragon." recalls Ray. Dragon is Assistant Farm Manager, and Burton is a professor focused on animal care and welfare.
"I learned so much from them in such a short amount of time. The community within the sustainable agriculture program at UMass is truly special," says Ray.
Ray hopes that teens who visit the farm will "get inspired to pursue career in sustainable agriculture someday." She now runs an after-school outdoor education program, for grades K through 5, "which is directly supported by my experience in the Stockbridge School."
The high school students who visited our farm are supported by a career exploration grant funded by the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC), a part of the Brattleboro Regional Chamber of Commerce.
"There are a lot of kids who are just not getting access to information about career pathways," says BDCC Director of Programs Jen Stromsen. "They may or may not be getting information about college... in a way that works for them."
Stockbridge Director of Recruitment Nessim Watson agrees. "Most high school students have learned that declaring a traditional major in an area like Biology, Business, or Law, will draw the praise of their parents and grandparents. But not every family knows that you can get a college degree in sustainable agriculture.
"Our Sustainable Food & Farming major draws hands-on learners and outdoorsy students to find fulfilling careers in the agriculture and fresh food industries," says Watson. "Stockbridge has been doing this for 150 years."
By funding career exploration programs for youth, Stromsen hopes to illuminate a wider variety of career pathways to students, especially those students who might find that their traditional high schools don't fully support their hands-on talents, so they can feel both successful and fulfilled after high school.