Farm to Community Mentors
The purpose of the Farm to Community Mentor program is to expand agricultural awareness by developing a community understanding of agriculture and to develop on-going relationships between communities, schools and their local farms. Farm to Community Mentors are farmers and educators who facilitate links between other farmers, gardeners, educators, children, and community in order to reconnect communities to their local agriculture.
Farm to Community Mentors are working to make farms and farmers more prominent resources in every community in Vermont. The Mentor project responds to the need in our communities for children and families to understand the important role that farms play in Vermont.
Farm To Community Mentor Program Goals And Objectives
- Increase community understanding of sustainable agriculture by:
- Connecting farmers, school-aged children and community members so they can accomplish agricultural projects on farms or in classrooms through lasting relationships; and
- Identifying agricultural materials and professionals within the community as resources.
- Enhance student learning of agriculture by using farms as an educational resource by:
- Introducing teachers to the diversity of topics that can be explored on the farm, in the garden, or managed forest, and to the richness and realness the experiences can bring to learning; and
- Developing activities, field studies, or service learning opportunities with farmers so they can gain strategies and confidence to become educators on the farm or in a classroom.
- Support the viability of farms by developing community connections to local agriculture by:
- Working with Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED) to develop marketing relationships with communities and schools to increase the amount of local food served at schools; and
- Working with institutions and organizations other than public schools to develop marketing and distribution relationships with farmers.
Statewide projects of the Farm to Community Mentors
Farmer Correspondence:
Do you ever wonder what farmers do in the winter months? Farmer pen-pals correspond with classrooms during the winter months across the state to share the events on the farm: from using draft horses in Fairfield to collect sap, to training a working farm dog in Dorset. Mentors match classrooms with farmers based on students’ interests and grade levels. Every subject matter taught in school can be explored through agriculture and be enhanced by corresponding with a farmer.
Youth at Farmers’ Market:
Are you looking for a handmade card, painted rock, homemade cookie, or sweet peppers raised by small hands? The Farm to Community Mentors collaborate with various Farmers’ Market managers to set up youth markets in towns throughout Vermont, as part of the regularly scheduled markets. The objective of the youth markets are to introduce new families to farmers’ markets and create an entrepreneurial opportunity for youth. On designated farmers’ market days, children and youth sell homemade or homegrown items such as jewelry, baked goods, homegrown vegetables and homemade foods. On average, 10-20 youth participate in each market, and spend most of the summer planning, making, or growing the products they will sell.
Farm to Community Mentors
NOFA-VT has 5 regional Farm to Community Mentors - they are all farmers or educators who have extensive relationships with the schools in their communities and with other farmers.
Please contact the mentor in your region with any questions or ideas. If there is no mentor listed for your area, contact the Farm to Community Mentor Program at NOFA-VT.
- Bennington & Rutland: Scout Proft,
2087 Dorset Hill Rd, East Dorset, VT 05253, 802-262-2290 - Windham: Margo Ghia,
PO Box 276, Saxtons River, VT 05154, 802-869-1214
Email Margo Ghia - Windsor: Amy Richardson,
87 Harland Hill Rd, Woodstock, VT 05091, 802-436-7017 - Lamoille & South Orleans: Kate Riley,
2051 Clay Hill Rd., Johnson, VT 05656, 802-635-7021
Email Kate Riley - Orange, & Washington: Kimberly Hagen,
28 Norton Rd, North Middlesex, VT 05682, 802-229-4096
Email Kimberly Hagen - Franklin & Grand Isle: Julie Wolcott
, 1345 Northop Rd, Enosburg Falls, VT 05450, 802-933-4592
Email Julie Wolcott - Addison & South Chittenden: Suzanne Young,
30 Black Snake Rd., Orwell, VT 05760, 802-948-2062
Email Suzanne Young - Chittenden & Statewide Projects: Abbie Nelson,
Mentor Coordinator, NOFA-VT, 802-434-4122