Harmoney Peets, a rising seventh-grade student from Hardwick, taught a Grow Your Own workshop about taste tests of smoothies, dips, and tea and how to grow the ingredients. This workshop was aimed at children and families. She is the youngest person to ever teach a Grow Your Own workshop in 6 years of the project. Her father, Josh Peets, works on the Just Cut crew and Grow Your Own projects at the Center for an Agricultural Economy and was on hand to provide back-up if she became nervous or forgot what she was going to say.

As a lead-up to the workshop and for outreach, Harmoney did a live radio interview on WLVB with Roland Lajoie of the station, her dad, and Bethany Dunbar of CAE.

Asked her thoughts about how the workshop went, she said this (some paraphrasing, some direct quotes):

It was really fun. I felt really nervous at first and kept sticking my hands in my sweatshirt pockets and twirling them around. It’s crazy to think about before dad worked on Grow Your Own and how much gardening we do now. People come look at our gardens and admire them.  It’s mindblowing to think we’ve come this far.

It’s a really big chance to go on the radio. Kids my age would probably dream to be on the radio, and I actually got to do that.

You learn a lot more about gardening at these hands-on workshops than you learn in schools. It’s just a really great experience to work with all you guys (adults on the steering committee). I would definitely want to do it again.