In four short months we’ve gone from ideas sketched out in a grant proposal to twenty-two high schoolers receiving paychecks for internships they’ve been doing on nine farms across Buncombe, Mitchell and Yancey Counties. A full list of those farms is below.
In addition to weeding, planting, fertilizing and mulching, our students have built fences and trellises and relationships with mentors in their communities. They’ve sheared rescued sheep, moved lumber sawn from hurricane-downed trees and set tomato plants on fields whose soil has been scrapped and replaced. Importantly, they’ve also arranged schedules with each other, met deadlines (mostly) and practiced communicating in the adult working world. We’re very proud of them.
Service Corps members also come together once a month to work for a day on a single farm to address the kind of projects that are best tackled with many hands. Pictured below is the whole group at Soil Shine Farm in Celo in May and the Buncombe County crew at Mr. & Mrs. Reemes’ farm in Sandy Much in June.