CINCINNATI -- The eggs were sold out early Saturday at Lighthouse Community School’s twice-weekly market.
But the market was full of many other things: organic kale, tomatoes, green onions, carrots, cabbage, collards, turnips, cucumbers and radishes. You also could have purchased chicken coops, outdoor benches and tomato cages.
The endeavor is part of the Community School in Madisonville, a division of Lighthouse Youth Services that serves students in grades six through 12. The Community School's agriculture program provides employment for youths, high-quality food to the surrounding neighborhood, and a hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum for participating students.
The Community School organic market is 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays and 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays at Chandler and Ward streets in Madisonville through October.
LEARNING TO THRIVE
Many of the Community School’s students are residents at one of the two group homes run by Lighthouse Youth Services. Others are enrolled at Community because they had difficulty thriving in traditional public schools.
During the school week, 10 students work in the garden for partial academic credit in science and social studies. About 20 students are enrolled in the agriculture program, and some of the students are paid for their work in the garden. Many of the paid students are enrolled in Lighthouse's life skills program that helps youths in foster care transition from group homes to independence.
“Kids come four days a week, from eight a.m. to noon, planting and tending,” said Geoffrey Becker, who teaches social studies and urban agriculture at the Community School.
Students participate in the organization of the garden, which includes raised beds in the school parking lot and a large lot the school acquired in 2011, around the corner at Chandler Street and Ward. And every other week they learn to cook dishes from produce they’ve grown, things like zucchini-crust bread, peaches (from the school’s trees) grilled with brown sugar and cinnamon, salsa, marinara and cabbage pancakes.
EVERYDAY STEM
The students are involved in every aspect of the operation, from planning what to do grow and where to put it, keeping records, doing bookkeeping and selling to the public. That's on top of the regular classroom work.
“There’s a lot of science and technology in there,” School Director Daniel Trujillo said. “(There’s) a lot of STEM involved in aquaponics: 'How do we make this work?’ All the way from measurement and cutting the wood to building (the garden boxes and frame for the fish tanks), the science behind the transition of fish waste into fertilizer that goes into the food, into the roots, what type of plants would work better, how do we get more pounds per square foot of vegetation where there’s lettuce.
"And the side effect," Trujillo added, "is they’re not only developing STEM skills but they’re developing the soft skills, such as how to to stick with something when it goes wrong. … You know, plants die, don’t give up. You put a nail in a piece of wood, and it goes out the wrong direction, just pull it out and start over again. So they learn a lot of those work skills and work ethics.”
The school's agriculture program began in 2010 with a few raised beds in the campus parking lot. Trujillo said they were building box frames when a U.S. Department of Agriculture employee happened to walk by; she told them about a grant, which they applied for and received.
With that $2,000 USDA boost and the knowledge that Madisonville is a food desert -- a place where fresh, local produce is not easy to get if you don’t own a car, and a trip to the closest supermarket involves not just two buses but a cross-municipal fare increase -- the market traces its beginning. Soon, Steve Rock of the Sidestreams Foundation got involved, providing funds for materials and other support for more garden beds, healthy soil.
BUILDING FOR THE COMMUNITY
For the main gardens, the school secured the title to a corner lot, where a house had burned down, and which had been abandoned, at Ward and Chandler streets. It took about two years for the garden structures to be built. In the meantime, the school began raising chickens -- there are now 15 hens and a rooster and a plan to sell chicks.
Prices at Community School’s market are more affordable than the supermarket or even other farmers markets. Trujillo said affordability was part of the project's mission.
Located in a lower-income neighborhood, he said, the farm is there to serve the community. Residents who cannot pay receive produce for free. Much of what isn’t sold or taken is donated to the Madisonville Education & Assistance Center or through a local church.
“We try to instill in that hard work brings money and it feels good when you do it that way," Trujillo said. "At the same time, we say when you have leftover product you donate it to those who are less fortunate. It’s a symbiotic relationship where you can make money and help out those who are less fortunate at the same time.”
The benefits accrue.
“The students,” Trujillo said, “are learning how to contribute to the community in a meaningful way. It surprised me. ... We always think that youth do not want to contribute to the community at large because it doesn’t seem like they have an interest in it. I have found that it’s just the opposite. They will go out and work in that hot sun and dig holes, move dirt, do all this work, just because people in the community will come and say, ‘Hey thank you for doing this.’ Or bring them water and say ‘We’re glad you’re doing this in the community.’”
The kids also are learning about nutritious eating, and they're learning how to grow it themselves.
"They won’t be able to [create their own garden] right when they graduate, but somewhere in their life they’re going to be in a place where they are going to be able to do this, and they’re going to know how to do it," Trujillo said. "And then they can also teach other people how to do it."
Meanwhile, on Saturday, Josh McLaren, 19, a student at the school, bagged cherry tomatoes and pulled carrots from the ground for a customer, the green tops pulled off with the customer's permission and fed to the hens.
McLaren said he’d heard the school might cut back on paying some of the students, so, he said, “I might be a volunteer. I have no problem with that. I love doing this.”
Jovonte Dozier, 20, already donates half of his work hours. What was his favorite thing about the job? “Just being here,” he said.