Melissa's Community Project

During Earth Week, I had the amazing opportunity to volunteer on Farm Day at the Liberty Hall Farm with Groundwork Elizabeth. Every year during Earth week, the School of Environmental and Sustainability Science (SESS) comes up with numerous activities in which volunteers can choose from in order to celebrate the earth while learning basic concepts of organic food production, and enjoying the great outdoors by assisting urban farmers to complete farm tasks. Those activities include: working on Kean Farm, cleaning the Elizabeth River, holding fairs and seminars which educate volunteers about recycling, using local and organic products, and helping the community. All these activities are created to educate students about not only ways on how they could protect the environment, but make them feel like they are a part of the process. 

The reason why I decided to specifically participate in Kean Farm Day is because I entirely support local and organic products. So, the thought of actually being part of it and learning about the organic food production was intriguing. In addition, I am very much interested in farming. When I was younger, I used to farm with my grandmother and her neighbors back home in Haiti whenever we would go to our summerhouse in the countryside. Therefore, I was curious to learn and experience Americans farming process.

This event started with a little tour of Liberty Farm including learning a few things about some plants and decomposition. The most entertaining yet frightening part was when we had the chance to encounter a garden snake. However, we were assigned to work on the strawberry field. There were at least 300 strawberries plants in the field. According to the farmer, strawberries weed duplicate itself and grow every year. After introducing us to our tasks and few procedures, we were divided into two groups: one that was assigned to clean up roots and leaves near each strawberry plants, and the other was assigned to collect the leaves for decomposing. The reason why we were carefully cleaning around each strawberry plant is because the plant needs to receive the full proper care—water and nutrition—for excellent growth and air.

Mint flowers. They are put in a container for them not to spread on all the ground.

The leaves are used to put in salad or food.

The farm's decomposition for the soil. 

The Strawberry field. The plastics have holes for the strawberry plant to breath.

Strawberry flower. This white flower indicate the strawberries are getting ready.

I love the fact that Liberty Farm’s goal is more for educational purpose than profit. They were so patient, caring, and even eager to teach us about farming. In addition, the fact that Kean University has their own farm in order to grow local and organic food is inspiring. They even use their own organic plantations for their own benefit. Example how their Gourmet Dining’s restaurant, Ursino, is a farm-to-table restaurant, and how most of their dining hall products are coming from Liberty Farm.  This shows how they value sustainability, especially in agriculture. They are smart enough to understand and acknowledge the importance of local and organic plantations. It shows how active they are with their environment, and how much they are saving from it. This community project has really given me insight on how local farms work and farmers’ major role in their local community. The fact that I got to both help and become a part of this and learn was an amazing experience. I would recommend anyone to participate in it next year if they can.

One of the fields.