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duce that’s harvested next year. There’s already an emphasis on food justice, with the Farm participating in local food banks and similar outreach, including educational displays right in the Dining Hall. “A lot of my kids are saying, ‘OK, this is all well and good, but what about the people who can’t afford organic?’ ” explained Noyes, who sees the Farm’s potential for integration into the life of the School as limitless. “One of Josh Hahn’s missions as environmental coordinator is to weave in curricular elements – not just environmental studies and science courses, but also the arts, languages, math. Every program, whether co-curricular or curricular, will be built on the four R’s: responsibility, relationship, relevance – which is absolutely essential – and rigor.” In September, after a morning of hard but exhilarating work for Prep for the Planet day, the prep class was treated to a farm-to-table lunch prepared by Andy Cox, the new manager of the School’s dining services. A far cry from the packed sandwiches of yore, there in the Farm’s red barn, not far from where the latest batch of fast-growing Kosher King chicks peeped contently under warm lights, a long table was covered in chafing
dishes whose enticingly labeled contents included “tossed salad with tomatoes from the Hotchkiss Farm”; “herb roasted potatoes with potatoes and rosemary from the Hotchkiss Farm”; “braised greens with collard and kale from the Hotchkiss Farm”, and braised barbecue brisket from Alan Cockerline’s grass-fed cows. Even the fresh cider was pressed by the kids from apples they’d picked that morning. “It was a great experience,” said Serena Sommerfield ’15, seated contentedly on a hay bale near classmates Gloria Odoemelam, Kahiya McDaniels, and Maude Quinn. It’s only the first of many. “Our focus is on how these kids can create their own futures,” points out Josh Hahn. “Producing energy with the new biomass plant, building soil and sequestering carbon, and growing food – this is all part of the creative, regenerative, entrepreneurial, problem-solving mindset. The Farm builds context for the content we teach in the classroom. Even if we only produce enough tomatoes for a month or half the potatoes we consume all year, we’re modeling not just being consumers, we’re modeling self-reliance. And that’s really the thrust of each and every environmental initiative the School promotes.”
Below: Students work at Prep for the Planet Day, before sitting down to a hearty farm-to-table lunch, with food from Fairfield Farms.
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