After the apprenticeship with CEFS we’re looking to start our own farm. We’ve recently purchased the farm, a 38 acre farm, with the ultimate goal of providing our community with a healthy lifestyle.

Darius McKoy, CEFS Apprentice 2022

I really thought I wanted to do something in the food system world, maybe the nonprofit side. But this apprenticeship has made me realize I want to do something more hands on and hopefully continue working on a farm. And just the apprenticeship has helped me realize that because I’ve gotten so much hands on experience.

Lauren Welsh, CEFS Apprentice 2022

With local food, the estimate is that if you buy local food, 90 cents on the dollar stays in the county. If you buy food from outside the county, 10 cents stays in the county. So, the senior center has a real need. They would love to see more local purchasing through them and through anybody else in the county,

Tim Burke, CEFS Intern 2021

I’ve always been interested in learning more about agriculture and the local food supply chain system and I’d never had a lot of experience in it before. This was a very cool opportunity to learn about how communities can build this local food supply chain that can build healthier communities.

Alice Lu, CEFS Intern 2021

With this internship you can really go from the beginning to the end of the research process. For instance, how to code a qualitative interview and identify themes and patterns within qualitative data, which is something that I haven’t really been exposed to before.

Maria DiGiovanni, CEFS Intern 2022

This internship is wonderful. You get to meet all sorts of people from all sorts of places. You get to see all these different farms. You get to learn a lot. And I think it’s really, really important.

Katina Oxendine, CEFS Intern 2021

This internship has been perfect for me and has opened my eyes to many other aspects and connections that is very, very valuable to me and will be extremely valuable in the future as far as my plans to move forward.

McKenzie Cummings, CEFS Intern 2021

I decided to be an intern with CEFS because I was really interested in the diverse programs that they are running. And I really appreciated that about the internship, that it was supply chain focus.

Ali Stone, CEFS Intern 2022

Coming into this internship, I really didn’t know much about agriculture at all. And so my mentor has really taught me what our profession is in a broader sense, but also what they’re doing specifically. This internship has given me a good overview of the system as a whole, but also with the specific project and how it’s going to impact the systems nationally.

Kate Pottle, CEFS Intern 2022

This internship supports my future career and education goals because it’s allowing me to decide exactly what I want to do when I graduate. I always knew that I wanted to pursue a master’s degree, but I wasn’t quite sure in what and if that was really exactly what I wanted to do. And doing research in a lab along with other Master’s master’s students and postdocs, it’s really giving me a general understanding of what my day to day life would be if I did decide to go get a Masters degree.

William Fleming, CEFS Intern 2021

This is a really great opportunity for me to see the research side of farming and extension while working with farmers, going around the state and seeing what different farm practices are.

Jarin Arline, CEFS Intern 2022

This internship is really giving me a foot in the door, and amazing contacts. But mainly this experience is exciting me for my future and everything that I want to do and realizing that there’s so much and I have not enough lifetimes.

Kayleigh Heather, CEFS Intern 2021

Being able to see the research side of things it’s been totally new for me. I don’t have any research experience, so I wanted to be able to have that opportunity to see how research plays into agroecology. I also appreciated having the professional development and being exposed to some more widespread agriculture and food system challenges that are going on in North Carolina.

Leah Guercio, CEFS Intern 2022

You can learn stuff in the textbook, but until you see it in real life, it’s not applicable, and being able to go into the field and see it, ask the questions, and be taught in the moment is really valuable.

Aiden Fox, CEFS Intern 2022

I really wanted to get some research experience under my belt before I graduate from college. So in this opportunity came up and it was just so perfect, and it allowed me to get some real hands-on in the field experience, which I haven’t had before.

Kiara McKenzie Perry, CEFS Intern 2021

CEFS internship combines many different aspects of agriculture besides research and gives you a big picture overview of a lot of different concepts or different areas in agriculture. There’s something for everybody that can interest them!

Brooke Matusko, CEFS Intern 2022

Throughout this internship, I learned a lot about the food system, farming, and this experience solidified my path and what I wanted to do with my career. That was the one thing that it did for me, but it also gave me so many connections to reach out.

Nathalie Uriarte-Ayala, CEFS Intern 2022

Going to a different farm or having an agricultural experience once a week not only encourages my passion for agriculture, but also an interest outside of what I specifically study.

Alexandra Veverka, CEFS Intern 2021

I knew that a passion of mine is sustainable food production, equitable community development, and things along that path, so I thought this would be such a great role for me.

Carolina DiGrande, CEFS Intern 2022

You come in as an intern and you go out as a professional. You learn all these different skills and you have fun! I’m learning more and gaining insight in things I didn’t know before.

Enoch Sarku, CEFS Intern 2021

I chose this internship because I wanted to help my family farm getting to the modern day of farming. It’s helped me to get a lot more information on cover crops and other ways to help our farm sustain itself.

Dakota Moore, CEFS Intern 2021

One of the best parts of the apprenticeship is that we have a good mix of people that are growing different things.

Christine Best, CEFS Apprentice 2022

With this internship, I really learned just how much the researchers commit to a very rigorous process to come to their conclusions, and there are a lot of variables to that. I just didn’t really fully realize the scope of what they’re looking into.

Wills Franklin Brooks, CEFS Intern 2021

I think it’s important to realize our successes in that there are so many child care centers with gardens and it’s important for the state to get local foods into these child care centers by working with universities and the local partnerships.

Erali Miller, CEFS Intern 2022