FoodCorps bringing life skills to Baldwin schools

Published 11:06 am Thursday, September 28, 2023

Baldwin County students have a unique opportunity to learn an important set of life skills thanks to the presence of the Americorps FoodCorps organization within the school system.

AmeriCorps FoodCorps is present in five lower income counties throughout Georgia, and it has been active in Baldwin County for five years partnering with the school system’s nutrition department to focus on issues like food education and physical wellness.

Tyler Sutton, Hope Jarrard and Jme Dunlow are service members through the organization and can be found throughout the county’s seven schools educating both students and teachers on issues like mindful eating, gardening and the importance of understanding where food comes from among much more.

Jarrard is the service member at both Midway Hills Academy and Midway Hills Primary. She worked closely with the STEAM teacher for a project in which students made self-watering planters that can be taken home at the end of the year. Recently, they won a $500 prize for a tutorial that two third-grade students made on the project, and those funds will be used to implement a sensory garden. While the existing garden is already a popular place where students can visit chickens, pick strawberries and more, the sensory garden would include more textures and plants.

“Our garden has become a really big tool for social-emotional learning,” Jarrard explained. “There’s one class that uses it as a behavior incentive, so if they meet their behavior goals by the end of the week, they get to go out to the garden for a certain amount of time.”

Sutton is active at Lakeview Primary School and Lakeview Academy, where two of the biggest projects she’s involved in include using the schools’ hydroponics and aquaponics labs that teach students that there’s more than one way to grow food.

“It’s using water instead of soil to teach students a new way to grow things and that there’s just not one method of growing things but multiple ways,” she said.

Sutton and Jarrard are both food education service members, so they work closely with classes implementing activities like taste tests and Harvest of the Month celebrations, as well as family engagement activities.

While Dunlow is primarily at Baldwin High, Oak Hill Middle School and the Early Learning Center, she travels to all seven schools. Since she’s a food and nutrition service member, she works closely with the cafeteria in giving students a voice in menu options as well as working with farmers to help provide local produce. She spends a great deal of her time dealing with projects like the aquaponics labs, working with science classes in the greenhouse and much more. Every day on the job, she gets to see the students’ excitement about what they’re doing, no matter what the project is.

“They’re happy when they’re in the garden,” she said. “Even though they’re getting dirty, they’re excited, even the high schoolers.”

All three of the service members say it’s the excitement of the kids that makes their own jobs so rewarding. State-based standards are incorporated into the lessons, and oftentimes, the students are learning without even realizing it.

“School is really tough on kids these days, especially the ones we work with, and I don’t think they particularly would describe school as fun, so to be able to give them an outlet to enjoy learning in some capacity is really exciting,” Jarrard said.

They are also proud to be providing kids with a sense of independence when it comes to making food choices.

“It’s their excitement for me when they want to try new things [and] they’re open minded about everything that we have to offer for them,” Sutton said. “Being able to see their smiles, and every time I pass by them they wave enthusiastically.”

That, she said, is when she truly knows that she and her fellow service members are making a difference.

“Even if it’s a small difference, it’s some difference, so I feel like that’s rewarding as well.”

For more information, visit Foodcorps.org.