CINCINNATI — When Kroger closed the doors of its College Hill location, it left the neighborhood without access to a grocery store. Years later, the community can now hand-pick fresh eggs and produce from a farm created and maintained by local high school students.
The agricultural hub operates at the back of Aiken High School's campus. Started in 2019 as an after-school garden club, the farm now has livestock, fruits and vegetables raised and cultivated across 61 acres.
Students built the greenhouse, high towers and animal pens with their own hands.
"What we are teaching is both language through interaction, production, reception, but also technical skills," said Aaron Parker, who oversees the students as the agricultural career tech pathway educator. "So it is an agri-business and production pathway."
Parker said the students get first dibs on the goods they produce at the farm. Community members also have daily access to the grounds, be it to get their own groceries or see the dozens of animals taking up residence.
The farm thrives year-round, even when classes are not in session. Parker said teens take up summer jobs through Hamilton County Youth Employment. Groundwork Ohio River Valley's Green Team also lends a hand.
"Our garden here since 2019 has been a victory garden, all through COVID, all through the summer — it doesn't go derelict when the students go away," Parker said.
Aiken's farm is one of nearly two dozen growing within Cincinnati Public Schools. The district partnered with local environmental nonprofit Green Umbrella five years ago to establish Green Schoolyards, an initiative that focuses on providing equitable access to outdoor learning and environmental educational resources for all students and staff members.
While Green Umbrella and CPS work to establish agricultural sites and programs at every school in the district, hundreds of community members were invited to Aiken High School Wednesday to learn about the partnerships currently in motion.
The Inaugural Greater Cincinnati Regional Green Schoolyards Summit included student-led tours of the school's farm, local vendors, a panel on school gardens moderated by the Civic Garden Center and lunch procured from local farms.
"Aiken High School is such a cool example of how, in this case, an agricultural education program can really transform a school community but also is a huge resource for the larger community," Green Umbrella Executive Director Ryan Mooney-Bullock said. "One of the things that really inspires me every time I talk to Aaron Parker is that this school has students from 50 countries and a lot of these students come from very agricultural backgrounds and so to have a place where they can learn that really connects into like deep cultural familiarity for them and for their families is something that is really meaningful."
Mooney-Bullock pointed to an upcoming project for the Aiken farm. It's working on a pilot program that allows students to sell produce from the garden to CPS Student Dining Services.
Currently, the school district already purchases local food to serve to staff and students, but this would be a "hyper-local" farm-to-table effort.
"We're excited to see how that changes not only the school environment but the career trajectories of these students so that they can find really meaningful careers that they are passionate about.
Parker said the program will provide Aiken students with a sense of ownership and appreciation for sustainable living.
"It creates a different reality of knowing where does food come from? Does it come from a corner market or a grocery store? No, it comes from a farm and it comes from people who work very hard at producing that, and our kids become the owners of that," said Parker. "They become prideful of that and they're responsible for it, because if it doesn't grow then they're the ones that have to take responsibility for that, if it does grow then they're the ones that take responsibility for that."
