Environment Club Goes to the Farmer's Market

Today the Environment Club had an unofficial field trip to the Hollywood Farmer's Market. The kids voted to do it on Mother's Day and as Avi and I waited out front of the school, I started thinking nobody decided to come.

Eventually Manny Sagastegui showed up along with Gina Limas and Mr. Pieschel and his wife. Manny's mom joined us and Esperanza and her sister met up with us over at the market. So we were a nice little group.

We headed down Sunset at about 11:00am. We had a really great time. It was most successful because of Avi though. He's great with the kids. He sort of guided us around asking vendors inquiry type questions in order for the kids to learn about the environment, locally grown foods, organic, raw, vegan, etc. The kids said the neatest thing they learned about was Raw Milk and how it's produced and how it's different from pasteurized. They also liked learning about Organic meat and free range eggs. The kids were great! They sampled all sorts of fruits and veggies; even things I don't care for like Wheat Grass juice and sprouted beans.

At the end of our visit to the Farmer's Market we stopped at one of mine and Avi's favorite food booths, "Taste of Life"-a vegan restaurant. I suggested to the kids to request samples. Since Avi and I have visited both their booth and restaurant, we sort of know the people there. They were so great to our HBHS students and gave them two large meals and a ginger juice to share! That's $30.00 in healthy food, free. We all sat down and munched on BBQ Tofu, Kale, Vegan Mac N'Cheese, Vegan Roast, Cornbread, Black Eyed Peas. I'll be sure to have them write a little thank you to send over.

I thought I'd share this little experience because it went very well and the kids learned! This is something that would be easy to make a monthly Environment Club activity. I'll be asking the kids if that's something they'd like to start doing. And, as I said before, fliers went home with kids that explained that we were walking (including the route we walked), said who was going teacher-wise, and explained that this was an unofficial event. One parent did ask to speak to me to make sure her daughter wasn't lying, which I think is great! And, one parent came which is even better. As a matter of fact, Manny's mom seemed interested in doing more things with the school and suggested inviting parents more often to things like this.

Hope everyone else had a great Sunday and Mother's Day!