DC Central Kitchen was approached by people who produced a documentary called Truck Farms (http://www.truckfarm.org/) to see if they wanted to join the movement and have a truck farm of their own. DCCK partnered with USDA to have a mobile garden to use as an educational tool for students around town. They take the truck to programs that already receive snacks or meals through DCCK and teach them about gardening, plants and where their food comes from. They also take the truck farm to USDA’s farmers market every Friday morning. The truck has over 30 different kinds of plants including dinosaur kale, stevia, eggplant flowers, cucumbers and tomatoes, to name my favorites!
Since there are so many summer feeding programs, there are a lot of truck farm visits to go to and busy people who are in charge of them. Thankfully they needed some help and so I’ve gotten to go to both the farmers market and a bunch of visits! I absolutely have loved it! We show the kids the truck and let them taste and smell different plants. They chomp on some stevia leaves and squeal in excitement that it tastes like sugar! We then take them inside and do some sort of craft. We’ve had them draw their own farm, glue seeds onto newspaper strips for them to plant at home, plant seeds in little pots and for the younger kids made coffee filter butterflies. I love the curiosity – I never grew up knowing about gardening or farming stuff so even for me I’m learning so many things about plants and how much better it is to eat the real stuff. These kids curiosity is awesome to watch as they try to figure out why in the world they’re being told they can try a leaf and why in the world it tastes like lemon. A simple educational tool that might not seem that impacting but I’m sure will stay with them for the rest of their lives.
On the other side of things, I’m starting to really get together my main project and am excited about what I was able to find! My computer definitely got a virus though and since I don’t know much about computers, I didn’t save my files anywhere else. Thankfully I had just emailed over what I had for my big report and survey the week before so it won’t be the end of the world if I lose everything, but definitely a bummer! That is not a fun discovery when you’re a research intern and everything you’ve done for the past month is on that computer. The IT person has been here since yesterday morning and still trying to recover stuff, so say a quick prayer
I’m still loving this place and these people. I couldn’t be more thankful for this time and what I get to experience and take in. I can’t believe there are only 2 and a half weeks left!