Who are you?
My name is Jordan Whiteman and I’ll be a Senior this year.
What did you do this summer?
I wanted to be a part of the greenhouse internship because my grandma has a garden of her own. It’s really tiny but I thought that I could learn a few things and take that to her garden and help out. [Also] I feel like this would be a good experience with working outside. I’m a teen and I could get some money for the summer and I want to go into environmental science.
You want to study environmental science?
I want to become an environmental scientist because with the way the world is right now, we need more sustainable and healthier choices. I want to use a lot of our indigenous ways to help the environment because I feel we as indigenous people had the land first and we very much knew how to make a circle, you give and what you take you give back. I [want] to figure out an easier way and healthier way for the environment [by] switching out different things. We start plowing differently, we start using different fertilizers and things like that.
Why do you think the Farm to School program is important to you and the community?
I think this is good because we’re trying to bring our fruits and vegetables into our school lunches and that would be good for our school community because it will help us get healthier. It’s good food and it’s local, you know where it’s coming from, and it means becoming self-sustained in our own little community. I think it’s good for the larger community because we have the farmer’s market and we're giving [produce] out for free. It’s good to have free options for vegetables for people [because some may be] scared that they can’t afford it and it is healthy food for them.
What was your favorite part of this summer?
My favorite part of the summer was building the high tunnels even though that was also like my worst week, because that was a lot of hard labor. But I got more experienced with building stuff and just seeing it grow from setting up and screwing certain things in, then to start making it into an actual building type [structure], it was nice to see that.
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