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Every year our BLAST Interns go on a Dig In, during which they travel around New England and learn about many different parts of our food system. This entry recounts part of this year’s trip.
On July 14, 2006, the last day of the Dig In, BLAST took a trip down to The Pemaquid River to learn about the Pemaquid Oyster Company. It was there where B.L.A.S.T. learned how oysters are spawn (are conceived), raised, and then harvested. The Pemaquid Oyster Company works in partnership to The Darling Center. The Darling Center is where all the oysters are raised. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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A group of Food Project youth and staff attended the 2006 National Society for Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources and Related Sciences (MANRRS) Conference. This is a reflection on that event.
I had a great time at MANRRS. When I first got there I was nervous but thrilled at the same time. That evening when we entered the dining area I felt happy but anxious again to see so many adults and a small group of kids our age. As Brittney and I sat at the dinner table, people began to sit with us. As we started to talk they became more and more interested at what we do here at The Food Project. They kept asking questions, but many of them lost interest after a while because of the fact that we were young and seemed inexperienced. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Every year our BLAST Interns go on a Dig In, during which they travel around New England and learn about many different parts of our food system. This entry recounts part of this year’s trip.
Having slept through a rainy night at the Good Life Center, the Harborside, Maine homestead of the late Helen and Scott Nearing, we awoke to help the Center’s steward, Bob St. Peter, in the garden. We set up the major posts for a new fence to protect the garden by digging two-foot-deep holes, inserting the 8-foot-tall poles, and filling in the holes with stones from the beach to secure them. The morning was drizzly and muddy, and after washing up and preparing a trail lunch, Bob led us on a mushroom hunt in the woods behind the homestead, which eventually led us to our next destination; Eliot “the man” Coleman’s Four Seasons Farm. We ate our lunches on a hill, overlooking the farm and Eliot’s greenhouses, and talked to Bob about how he decided that he wanted to live sustainably. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Every year our BLAST Interns go on a Dig In, during which they travel around New England and learn about many different parts of our food system. This entry recounts part of this year’s trip.
After our close encounter of the bovine kind at Two Loon’s Dairy Farm, we made our way to Super Chilly Farm in Palermo, Maine. Our gracious host, John Bunker, welcomed us into his Eden-like abode, lush with fresh vegetables and bursting fruit trees. But the most fascinating component of the agricultural haven was his own unique variety of “super chile”, the namesake of the farm. He dubbed his one-of-a-kind chile peppers the “matchbox” variety, in respect to its curiously strong and fiery taste.
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On July 10, 2006, five BLAST interns, their supervisor Monica Pless, and the public education coordinator Cammy Watts left the quiet little town of Lincoln, Massachusetts to the even quieter and littler town of Brunswick, Maine. But that was only the first stop of many on a journey through main to find sustainable agriculture, which will forever be known as The BLASTDIG IN. This was a very fun five-day field trip filled with mosquitoes, Black flies, outhouses, little towns, little cities, farms, and days without showers. Will they have fun? Will they have a bad time? Will they ever get a shower? You will never know, unless you read these blogs.
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On Saturday, July 8 I went to the first volunteer day at the United Teen Equality Center (UTEC) in Lowell, MA. I walked into a spirited water balloon fight and checked in with Derek Mitchell, the leader of the farm crew. We sat in a circle and got started with a mood check (if you’re a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 you get a round of applause). We split into groups and started on a tour of the farm – my group started in the 3 sisters garden. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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A few newspaper articles came across our desks this week. The first was a piece in the North County Times (a San Diego newspaper) about Eat In, Act Out activities, and the benefits of eating local.
Next up were two articles about our North Shore site. The Salem News writes about our new farm at Long Hill in Beverly, MA, while the Marblehead Reporter describes the Marblehead Farmers Market, which we participate in.
That’s all for now!
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Annie is an Urban Education and Outreach intern.
“The future is in your hands” — so goes the saying I have heard many times throughout my life. And although I believe it every time I hear it, I really felt that way at the MetroFuture working session that I attended on June 27th.
The purpose of the working session was to discuss the options and possibilities for the growth of the Metro Boston area through conversation and cutting edge technology. Keypads, for example, to me were one of the highlights of the event; using them made me feel like I was part of the “ask the audience” lifeline in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? But instead of being quizzed on random trivia, the audience at this meeting was answering questions that carry with them great impact. For example, “What mix of housing types should be built in the Inner Core and in Regional Urban Centers?” Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Mocha is a BLAST intern.
On June 28 2006, Raleigh and I were able to attend a conference at Northeastern University hosted by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council. We were there for a MetroFuture project. During this project we talked about what the future will hold in the year 2030 in the region. We discussed trends in Massachusetts that will change over time till the year 2030. In these discussions we talked about houses, jobs, land, and populations between moderate suburbs, developing suburbs, and the inner city. Most of our discussions made were based on our group’s votes. We were given ten questions based on these topics and they were broken down into another six to eight questions multiple choice or percentages. We used keypads to answer questions that were multiple choice. These questions were not based on right or wrong answers but on your opinion on how you feel towards situations in Massachusetts that will most likely change in the upcoming years. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Raleigh is a new BLAST intern.
A set of five new BLAST interns and two new Urban Ed. and Outreach interns traveled to that big golden dome on Beacon Hill on Wednesday, July 5th to learn about the legislative process and advocacy. Our mission was to garner support for a proclamation, officially naming the first week of August as Eat In, Act Out Week, to be sent through to the governor himself. Unbeknownst to the young interns, advocating for something does not prove to be as daunting a task as it seems. Our kind hostess, Maureen Ferris, director of the Massachusetts Legislative Children’s Caucus, gave us a quick tour of the magnificent State House, describing almost every detail, from murals of historical figures all the way down to the thirteen varieties of marble throughout the great edifice (I counted four). More importantly, she showed us the political ropes about advocacy and legislation, assuaging our uncertainties, and prepping us for our afternoon meetings; and all in time for lunch! Click here for the rest of this entry…
