The NorthWest Initiative’s Food Systems Project’s School Garden-Based Nutrition Education Program will be celebrating the return of the hoophouse (passive solar greenhouse) this Friday after being down for a winter due to vandalism.  The 250+ students at Riddle Elementary will now be able to see sprouts spring into life in the middle of all the ice and snow!

Come join us this Friday, October 16^th from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. in the Riddle Elementary School Garden at 221 Huron St, Lansing, MI 48915.  Students will be preparing the indoor and outdoor gardens for winter while snacking on pumpkin bread and apple cider.

Special thanks go out to the hoop house experts John Biernbaum and Adam Montri for leading the hoophouse repairs and Mayor Virg Bernero and the Lansing Police Department for making the funds available to pay for the new plastic and for supplying a security camera and signage.  I am completely astounded by the good will and support of our community.

The School Garden-Based Nutrition Education program is funded by the Michigan Nutrition Network and the Ingham County Health Department.  All garden related expenses are paid for entirely by community donations.

For more information please call Joy Baldwin at 517-999-2894 or e-mail her at joy@nwlansing.org.

by Alexis Horton

My name is Alexis Horton, and I am a current student at Lewis Cass Technical High school. In the fall, I will be entering my junior year of high school. My mentor here for MAP is Dr. Anne Scott in the Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies (CAARS) department in the Natural Resources building. The CARRS department works on reaching out to the community to show just how much agriculture plays a role in everyone’s lives. My mentor specializes in helping coordinate ways to get healthy foods into people’s lives, and I am glad I am here to help along the way.

My first week was very exciting because I had no idea what to expect. I spent time getting to know my mentors coworkers, and who I’d be working with my six weeks interning. The staff were so nice to me, and from there on I felt like this was my job, and I took it serious. My very first week, I attended a teachers’ curriculum writing work-shop, where I learned that after everything was finalized, I would be published before I graduate from high school. When I heard that, I soon knew this was the perfect job for me.

The teachers’ curriculum writing work-shop was very interesting. The objective for the workshop was to find out ways to incorporate more agriculture in the classrooms appropriate for each grade level and subject. My job was to challenge the teachers to come up with creative ideas for the classroom, and give my student opinion. The day was very long, but it turned out very productive, and we got most of the hard work done. We have to have a couple more meetings for the curriculums to be totally complete, but everything is turning out well.

When I am not out on a field trip I am usually at the office working on things for my mentor. At the office, I help with copying papers, make spread sheets, put together packets for surveys, and upload photo and video from the field trips. I type up notes my mentor gives me, run errands, and I do pretty much anything else my mentor wants me to do for her. Since I work alongside everyone else, I also attend the weekly staff meetings every Thursday, at 8:15. My job is very enjoyable, and the work environment is perfect.

A good environment at work is a very important thing to have. At my job, the work environment is just perfect. Everyone seems relaxed, even when they have the hugest work load. The offices are very serene and everyone seems to get along very well here. They also work well as a team, because if someone has tons to do someone is always there to ask if they can help out with something. To me, that is something very important to have because people work so better when they have a good support system and that’s all you see when you walk in the offices, the meetings, and even the hallways.

People always tell me that I don’t have to rush to find out what I want to pursue a career in. I took what they said into in consideration, and I kept my mind open as well as my heart. It’s one thing to go into a field and do the work because it is your career and you are stuck with it. I want to love my job, and be happy to get up every day and look forward to seeing the people there and doing the work. At this point in my life, I have narrowed what I would like to do in my life down to a field associated with agriculture in some way, and the MAP program may have just help me pick my career.

The Multicultural Apprenticeship Program is a program designed to give students a taste of all the different fields that are available to go in. I highly appreciate the MAP program, because of what it helped me figure out this summer. Before, I had no clue to what I wanted to go into in college. Now, because of the program, I have an idea. I am going to take back everything I learned here and use it to my complete advantage. I hope to go very far with what I have learned because it has all been very influential.

When I am not at work, during the week MAP participants do constructive learning. On Mondays, and Wednesdays, we attend ACT preparation classes. Bridges is an online program that offers ACT practice tests and applications to strengthen students test taking skills. On Tuesdays, and Thursday, we attend seminars as a group and learn about general everyday knowledge that all individuals should be aware of by a guest speaker from Michigan State University. the topics covered are generally vital to knowledge.

At the end of the MAP program, we have to give a presentation to an audience and explain to them what we did with our mentors and the overall MAP experience. So since we have to give an oral presentation, we met with public speaker Jennifer Sowa. She taught us what to do and what not to do for a stellar presentation.  We learned how to design and present our power point presentations in an effective manner.