Cooperative Living March/April 2014 - 33

Gardens on the upper and lower campuses
serve as outdoor classrooms where
fellows not only grow most of their own
food, but learn best growing practices and
community leadership skills. The hoop
house, filled with
vegetables growing
on the ground and
vertically, helps
sustain the fellows'
food-growing efforts
beyond frost and
during fall and winter
high-elevation chill.
Before the seminal
six-month program's
November commencement,
fellows
host a public presentation
of their individual
research projects.
Looking back on Allegheny Mountain
School's first-phase experience, one fellow
says the school teaches far more than how
to grow food.
" I will admit that when I first joined the
Allegheny Mountain School fellowship program
a little part of me was running away
from the traditional career path of a nineto-five
office job, " says Emily Melvin, a senior
fellow. " But as I learned about the mission
of the school and the power to do
good through food, I became a passionate
champion of education through gardening.
Now I'm running a full and steady sprint
towards something I genuinely believe in. "
Melvin's high energy level typifies the
powerful human force behind the
Allegheny Mountain School's positive
impact on communities beyond Highland
County. Ellen Butchart, program director,
explains that phase-two fellows have been
assigned to projects where they are making
a positive difference in the Shenandoah
Valley and elsewhere in the region.
" Our mission is to train fellows to work
on projects that increase access to healthy
food in a variety of communities, " Butchart
enthuses. " Phase one is only a piece of that
story and only a part of the impact we have. "
For instance, graduate fellow Lisa
Millette has noted significant growth in the
number of children who are learning about
local food at Project GROWS, a community
farm and educational facility in Verona
where she works alongside other fellows.
More than quadruple the number of children
visited the teaching farm, and its food production
more than tripled, from 2012 to
2013 with the help of Allegheny Mountain
School.
March-April 2014/www.co-opliving.com
Chelsea Wakstein, right, makes sauerkraut
during a Highland Center's Farmer's Market
presentation. Below, the lower campus
consists of a large garden and farm buildings.
Apple expert Kirk Billingsley, above, tells fellows and visitors how to graft seedlings.
In the hoop house, opposite, school fellows answer visitors' questions
during one of the tours on Allegheny Mountain.
" Without our partnership with Allegheny
Mountain School, none of this would be
possible and Project GROWS impact on the
children and youth in our community, while
being essential, would be much smaller, "
says Ryan Blosser, executive director of
Project GROWS.
In collaboration with Staunton Creative
Community Fund, the Valley Conservation
Council has launched a food entrepreneurial
loan program that was the brainchild of
Charlie Aller, an Allegheny Mountain School
fellow.
Another fellow, Cabell Hodges, ran a market
garden with New Community Project residents
in Harrisonburg that supplied produce to
a number of local restaurants and used proceeds
to raise homes for new immigrant families
and the homeless. Senior fellow Ian Sawyer
is working there this year with homeless people
on issues of food security and shelter, as well as
teaching residents how to grow food for sale.
New Community Project Harrisonburg " combines
sustainable agriculture with groundbreaking
backyard environmental projects and outreach
to the community, " its website says.
31
JOHN BRUCE PHOTOS COURTESY THE RECORDER NEWSPAPER
Cooperative Living March/April 2014

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