Happy back-to-school season! Although we are sad we will be getting less time with our Farm Fellows, we are so fulfilled to reflect on a jam-packed summer with them! We are so proud of our Food Justice Fellows Omar, M’Bouilee, Elizabeth, Cardin, and Gayatri. 

 

They’ve spent hours every Thursday supporting our various farm partners including Horseneck Farm, Ayeko Farm, Marra Farm, Small Axe, Faith Beyond Farm, Rainier Beach Urban Farm, Regino Farms, Yes Farm, and more with weeding, harvesting, washing, weighing, and packing fresh local food with our Farmer Support Lead Cly! After days at the farm, they’d lead our Community Sourced Agriculture (CSA) packing for Southend residents and families. 

 

They pulled up consistently to Farm Stand Saturdays and stepped up big time when our Food Hub Director Kerry White was out on injury. They held it down with leadership, line management, and team bonding. They cooked food together at Garden Gremlins with food straight from our gardens like potatoes, tomatoes, herbs, and blackberries, and made smoothies! They remembered to put aside produce for Wednesday RBAC activations in the community and continued to give out free food to those passing by each week as part of our food justice as public safety philosophy. 

 

They brought so much vibrancy to the Seeds of Change Network priorities which include value chain support as well as engaging youth in the local food system through community care for farmers and for each other. They worked together to schedule themselves, figure out their roles, and lanes for collaboration, and train in interviewing farmers and short doc creation. They’ve engaged in partnerships and power building with other youth-led food justice organizations in the community like Nourishian, FEEST, Y-WE Grow, Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands Youth Stewards through organizing Town Halls, participating in Food Justice Panels, Resisting Environmental Racism Workshop, and attending folks end of program celebration meals made with produce provided and harvested by us! 

 

Check out a snippet of their end-of-summer recap presentation at the RBAC Growth Center and the main takeaways of what they learned: 

  • The interworking of documentary production​
  • Plant identification​
  • The cultural upbringing of our local BIPOC farmers through talk stories​
  • Adapt to new/sudden changes within the food hub​

-Nurhaliza Mohamath   –Kerry White

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