{"id":31024,"date":"2016-12-14T10:35:34","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T15:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=31024"},"modified":"2016-12-14T14:49:27","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T19:49:27","slug":"homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Homesteading&#8217; students can veggies, chicken-tend, garden, bake \u2014 and share it all"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Students used to leave farming behind when they came to academia, so the stories go. Today, though, there is a resurgence in back-to-the-land skill-building among Millennials, as noted by Michaela Mast, market coordinator for Eastern Mennonite University&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/sustainability\/campus\/sustainable-food-initiative\/\">Sustainable Food Initiative<\/a>. Gardening, animal husbandry, harvesting and preserving vegetables draw students to SFI, and the products draw campus to a free \u201cmarket\u201d every Wednesday.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31029\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31029\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/12\/homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share\/20160630-sustainable-food-initiative-produce-giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-31029\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31029 size-medium\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20160630-Sustainable-Food-Initiative-Produce-Giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"20160630-sustainable-food-initiative-produce-giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20160630-Sustainable-Food-Initiative-Produce-Giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20160630-Sustainable-Food-Initiative-Produce-Giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20160630-Sustainable-Food-Initiative-Produce-Giveaway-004-1000px-long-edge.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31029\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From left: Sustainable Food Initiative members Perry Blosser, Aubrey Shelly and Clara Bush with fall produce, offered free to students. (Photo by Andrew Strack)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SFI has sold bounty from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/sustainability\/campus\/garden-compost\/\">campus gardens<\/a> for years, but this semester, the club began offering their vegetables, local milk share and home-canned goods for free. The milk, bought out of the club&#8217;s budget, comes from Persimmon Dairy on Willow Run Road.<\/p>\n<p>Between 25 and 75 customers stop by each Wednesday for jalape<span class=\"st\">\u00f1<\/span>os, tomatoes, pumpkins, figs from the edible landscaping on campus, and student-made preserves.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone comes for jam!\u201d Mast jokes of the grape and berry jam made by Clara Bush. At their opening market this semester, students lined up a half an hour before the doors opened. For sale were eggs from the campus chickens and bread baked by five student volunteers. The chickens, a joint project with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.emu.edu\/sustainability\/campus\/earthkeepers\/\">Earthkeepers club<\/a>, are cared for by seven volunteers managed by junior Aubrey Shelley. Mast, a psychology major with music and biology minors, hopes the markets will both build community and make buyers think about food origins.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_31028\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31028\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/12\/homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share\/20161130-sfi-distribution-005-1000px\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-31028\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-31028 size-medium\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20161130-SFI-Distribution-005-1000px-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"20161130-sfi-distribution-005-1000px\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20161130-SFI-Distribution-005-1000px-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20161130-SFI-Distribution-005-1000px-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/12\/20161130-SFI-Distribution-005-1000px.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-31028\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kat Lehman looks over canned goods at a November market offered by the Sustainable Food Initiative. From a farming family in Ohio, she brought garlic back to campus to share after Thanksgiving break. (Photo by Lauren Eckenroad)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Besides the good eating, Mast believes SFI attracts workers and patrons through their camaraderie and environmentalism. Many of the first-years who come to market ask how they can get involved, such as now-junior Kat Lehman. Lehman, who has been involved in SFI in a variety of roles, hails from a farming family in Dover, Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGardening connects me to my dad,\u201d says Lehman. The two recently planted garlic while she was home for Thanksgiving break, and Lehman brought their surplus back to Harrisonburg, where it is now planted in SFI\u2019s Mount Clinton Garden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a very therapeutic pastime, gardening is,\u201d says Mast. \u201cWe all eat food! It&#8217;s a place where we can all find common ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoing out every morning to the garden and spending a good solid hour on my own, picking produce or weeding \u2026 it\u2019s kind of a spiritual experience,\u201d says Diego Barahona, a senior biochemistry major who is one of four paid SFI workers.<\/p>\n<p>This semester, SFI hosted lima and green bean picking and preserving parties, sustainability tours for Transitions classes and Eastern Mennonite Elementary School, a chicken butchering workshop, and various group meals.<\/p>\n<p>Faculty advisor Gregory Sachs, building automation coordinator for the physical plant and backyard chicken farmer, led the butchering workshop for six students. The participants shared the meat of the three roosters they processed.<\/p>\n<p>SFI also has an ongoing relationship with <a href=\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2015\/07\/sustainable-food-initiative-partners-with-virginia-mennonite-retirement-community-farm-to-grow-harvest-vegetables\/\">Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community&#8217;s Farm at Willow Run<\/a>, managed by Tom Brenneman &#8217;92. Throughout the seasons, Brenneman calls in SFI&#8217;s \u201ccrop mobs,\u201d groups of students willing to harvest surplus corn, potatoes, or peppers as needed. Some of this produce ends up on SFI&#8217;s market table. Brenneman also coaches them in crop management, as does Jonathan McRay, gardener and Center for Justice and Peacebuilding graduate.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s EMU campus having a wider footprint on its surroundings,\u201d says Barahona of SFI\u2019s networking opportunities with local farmers.<\/p>\n<p>Mast cites childhood gardening with her mother in the Broadway countryside as her introduction to the \u201clife-giving\u201d hobby. She is also a passionate member of DivestEMU, a student organization advocating for EMU to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in \u201cenvironmentally responsible corporations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think gardening is one of the best ways to grow an appreciation for the Earth and what it gives us,\u201d says Mast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students used to leave farming behind when they came to academia, so the stories go. Today, though, there is a resurgence in back-to-the-land skill-building among Millennials, as noted by Michaela <a href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share\/\" target=\"_self\" class=\"more-link\">... read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">about &#8216;Homesteading&#8217; students can veggies, chicken-tend, garden, bake \u2014 and share it all<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5583,14715,17562,5643,4513,5708,5730],"tags":[],"feature":[17427,17426,17241,17422],"class_list":["post-31024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","category-campus-life","category-digest","category-environmental-sustainability","category-student-life","category-sustainability","category-undergraduate-programs","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature","feature-news-landing-page-main-feature"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Homesteading&#039; students can veggies, chicken-tend, garden, bake \u2014 and share it all - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2016\/homesteading-students-can-veggies-chicken-tend-garden-bake-share\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Homesteading&#039; students can veggies, chicken-tend, garden, bake \u2014 and share it all - EMU News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Students used to leave farming behind when they came to academia, so the stories go. 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