by Caroline

It felt appropriate to spend last week’s Cesar Chavez Day of Service on a farm. The first graders know Chavez’ story as well as they do the life of MLK, Jr., and on the drive out to Marin, my car full talked about how our experience on a small organic farm would differ from the experience of migrant farm workers in the 70s. “We won’t get sprayed!” they cheered. And although I know the farm industry still has a long way to go, for this day, we focused on celebrating Chavez and the healthy farm we visited.

The kids helped plant seeds:

They wheel barrowed weeds to the compost pile:

They learned about bees and other beneficial insects:

After which they took some time to draw the bugs they observed on the farm:

Eli’s drawings:

We took a lunch break, and some of us added calendula flowers to our meals:

And at the end of the day, the patient farmers sent us each home with a seedling, which one young gardener has established in our own city garden: