July 2016 – Taylor Halso, a junior at the University of Mount Olive, has been working with Onslow County Cooperative Extension Director Peggie Garner. She hopes to go into social work on a military base in the future, and has been excited to learn about ways that local agriculture can contribute to the welfare of the military community.
One of the projects she has worked on is an incubator farming program for individuals with the Wounded Warrior Project. Specifically, she has been reviewing the curriculum for the incubator farms, while at the same time learning how incubator farming can function as a type of therapy for veterans.
Taylor has also been working with the three farmers’ markets in Onslow County, including the one hosted at Camp Lejeune. She has worked hard to try and get more vendors and consumers to come to the markets, and she has established a number of relationships within the farmer’s market network. In addition, Taylor worked with EFNEP, or the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program, which assists families in buying and preparing local, healthy food.
Taylor says that she has learned a lot and appreciates how her work contributes to the welfare of others and allows her to establish relationships within the community. She explains, “It’s been a lot of hard work, but I don’t see it as work because I’ve had so much fun with it, and I’ve met so many new people and different personalities, so it’s been really neat for me.”
This article originally appeared in the July 2016 NC Growing Together Newsletter.