Detroit students learning about farming and earning money, too

At a school on Detroit’s west side, a group of high school students is spending hours in the hot summer sun learning a new skill: farming. 

As part of the Detroit Public School Community District’s school garden program, 12 high school students have been hired as interns at the 2.5-acre urban farm on the campus of the Drew Transition Center, a former middle school that now provides secondary education to special needs students in Detroit public schools. 

The paid interns work 30 hours a week planting, caring for and harvesting the many crops on the farm, including squash, tomatoes, corn, potatoes and zucchini. Once the crops are harvested, the students could see the food again. That’s because most of the harvest winds up in Detroit schools’ cafeterias. And some of it is taken to farm stands and farmers markets during the summer — now staffed by the teen farmers who grew the plants themselves.

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The Drew farm began about five years ago, said Detroit School Garden Collaborative program manager Monica DeGarmo.  

“Everything you see here started with a garden program,” said DeGarmo, sitting in one of the farm’s six greenhouses, used year-round to grow crops. “So we had funding for DPS students to build raised garden beds, and so these garden beds are now at over 80 schools in Detroit.” 

DeGarmo explains that the internship this summer is a pilot program for kids to work at Drew farm, with the goal of fostering a closer relationship between Detroiters and their food. 

“The reality is most students in Detroit — their only connection with food is what’s being served to them.” DeGarmo said. “We’re trying to fill that gap, with them growing from seed and then seeing how that food can actually be prepared.”

Detroit native Colleen Walker, 50, is a garden attendant at the Drew farm — but she prefers the title of farmer. She says that the special needs students from the Drew Transition Center often come to the farm for job training. 

“They come help out, they pull weeds, and they enjoy it,” said Walker. She said she values the relationships that she has formed with both the students from Drew and the summer interns. 

“We’re their mentors, their mothers, their families,” she said. “We’ve been here for three years and we’re family.”

Renaissance High School student Zharia Akeem is working at the farm this summer.

“I was always really interested in how plants grew,” said Akeem, 15. “I always had a garden, but I’d never seen one to this extent — so big — so I thought it would be a good opportunity.”

India Flournoy, 15, who attends Detroit’s Ben Carson High School, said that she was surprised by the size of the plants when she first arrived at the farm. 

“I never knew that tomatoes grew so tall, because I’d never really seen a tomato plant grow,” said Flournoy. 

“I have to clip (the tomatoes), make sure I take the suckers off so they won’t keep growing, and won’t go so high,” said Flournoy. “You have to clip them every time they go to a new spot.”

Despite the sweltering summer heat, Akeem and Flournoy have learned what it takes to be farmers. In one of the long greenhouses, they pointed to large-leafed plants growing out of the ground: squash and zucchini.

“We harvest these every day, and they get extremely big,” said Akeem. “They scratch your arms really bad, so you come home with scratches all on your arm.” 

“You have to wear long sleeves when you’re in here,” Flournoy added.

Dakarai Washington, 16, from Renaissance High School, sees his work on Drew Farm as a valuable stepping stone to achieving his dream of playing in the National Football League.

“It just motivates me more to do what I want to do,” said Washington. “I want to do (football) for the rest of my life, but this keeps me humble, it keeps me hungry.” 

“There’s always something to do, even when it looks like it’s perfectly fine,” he added. “We do this a lot, but there’s always something growing and always something to do to stay active.”

Since this summer’s program began on June 26, the interns have learned the process of growing, harvesting, and selling the food.
 
“We harvest the food, then we have to rinse it, weigh it and bag it,” said Makayla Harris, 15, from Northwestern High School. “Once it’s bagged, we either take it to the market where we sell it to everyone, or we have our Summer Festival."

The Summer Festival is from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. today at Drew Farm, 9600 Wyoming in Detroit.

DeGarmo says that the students have sold produce weekly at farm stands around the city. 

“We have farm stands at five different schools this summer so that we can reach families directly,” said DeGarmo. “In August we’re actually going to Eastern Market, Northwest Detroit farmers’ market, larger markets.” 

Akeem has had to expand her own knowledge of fruits and vegetables in order to sell them successfully. 

“I never knew there were so many kinds of different types of vegetable,” said Akeem. “And you have to learn about it, too, because people will ask you when you’re selling them ‘what can I do with this, how is it different from that.’ So I’ve had to become a part-time chef to make sure I know how to cook them when I explain it to people. I didn’t cook before I started this program at all.”

To the interns, the community involvement that comes with the sale of produce is the most valuable part of the program. 

“It’s the best part, actually,” said Akeem. “A lot of the time you don’t see your neighbors outside of where you live. You see them when you’re coming out of the house and stuff, but when you invite them to your farmstand and you get closer to them, you start to talk to them on a different level because they’ve been to your job and seen who you work with.”