August 20, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
Cultivating a love for gardening!
Thanks to the Farm Bureau Federation and other partners, a group of DeKalb Middle School students are learning first-hand where their food comes from and how important farming and agriculture are to their daily lives.
Through the Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom Foundation, DMS has been awarded a $500 Outdoor Classroom Garden grant and a check in that amount was presented to the school on Thursday by Mack Harney, President of the DeKalb County Farm Bureau Board of Directors and Bradley Locke, Agency Manager of the local Farm Bureau Office. Board member Mike Conley joined them for the presentation. Receiving the $500 check were Suzette Barnes, DMS Teacher, along with Principal Caleb Shehane and Assistant Principal Teresa Jones.
Barnes said funds from the grant will be used to expand the current garden program as well as other agriculture projects at DeKalb Middle School.
“We started an outdoor garden and kids in summer school became involved in it but then other students here at the school have gotten interested since and are now helping take care of the plants. We go out and hoe and till the garden and then when the produce is ready to be picked, the students get to take it home. A community member, Myron Rhody came out to plow and till the garden for us in the beginning and he donated our seeds and plants so the kids were able to plant and harvest produce like zucchini squash, yellow squash, cucumbers, and tomatoes and we have planted cabbage, sweet potatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, carrots and a variety of other fruits and vegetables,” said Barnes.
Over the summer, Barnes and three other teachers from DeKalb Middle School, Courtney O’Conner, Carson Speck, and Melba Farmer attended a Professional Development Day for “Ag in the Classroom” and participated in the training that highlighted agriculture while covering a variety of state academic standards. The training was held at Jere Whitson School in Cookeville. The teachers were provided with materials and resources for immediate use in their classes at DeKalb Middle.
The grant application encouraged partnerships with local businesses and agencies. For its application, DeKalb Middle School was able to partner with DeKalb Farmers Co-op, DeKalb Soil Conservation District, DeKalb County Farm Bureau Board of Directors, DeKalb County/UT Extension, Community Volunteers and Advisors, Myron Rhody and Mary Sanders.
DMS Principal Caleb Shehane expressed his thanks for the grant award and for Ms. Barnes’ involvement in this project. “She is a great growth mindset here in helping us push a variety of activities for kids who might not otherwise have those opportunities. We are excited about this garden and the donation and where this will go. The kids are already reaping the benefits by getting to take the vegetables home and that’s really cool for us to see,” said Shehane.
“Even though the focus is on the garden, the grant is also for anything agriculture related,” Barnes continued. “We have hatched baby chickens from eggs in the classroom and the students watched that process in the incubator. We keep the chicks for about a week and then send them to local farms. This grant allows us to do things like this and anything that is agriculture and nursery related and not just the garden,” said Barnes.
“We are very pleased that DeKalb Middle School has a program like this that we can help them with,” said Harney.” So many children now are not exposed to farm life. Most of them are four or five generations off the farm and they don’t know where their food comes from or the work that is involved in it, so we want to help students and the school anyway we can promote that in DeKalb County”.
“Anytime we can get behind the school system to promote things such as agriculture, we are all about it and to see these kids grow and learn things they would not have before is a blessing to us,” added Locke.
The program is having the desired effect. 12-year-old Logan Gentry, a 7th grader at DMS and son of Emily Knowles, told WJLE this is his first ever experience with a garden and he loves it.
“I like going to the garden. It provides food that we can take home. The other day I took home some zucchini squash, yellow squash, okra, and Tommy Toe tomatoes and they (family) immediately wanted to eat fried squash,” said Gentry.