By Suzanne Allcroft, Agriculture Intern

This Tuesday I had the privilege of attending a pizza party hosted by a group of students from Kennedy Middle School.  But this wasn’t just any pizza party. The students made everything from scratch (even the cheese!) and it marked the finale of an after school class called Kitchen Literacy: Cooking, Nutrition, and Food Justice. For the final class, the students had invited their parents and teachers to enjoy their cooking.

Tags: Community Supported Agriculture, internships, Hidden Villa internship program, Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program, sustainable agriculture, food, environmental education, garden based education, school gardens, HVEEP, intern Read More

Guest post by Margy Dorr

My time as a volunteer at Hidden Villa has been a unique and treasured experience. Not only am I enamored with the beautiful natural landscape, I am also surrounded by a rich history while working with the development team in the Duveneck House.

Tags: job skills, Volunteering, internships, intern, Hidden Villa internship program Read More

Guest post by Daniel Chmielewski

"Connected, connected, everything’s connected.” One of the well known songs at Hidden Villa, it strikes a central point in the ecological imperative of our times: "to recognize and understand that humans are intrinsically related to all life and the systems which support it (water, air, soil).” Once “unconnected” we risk alienation from the natural flow of life processes and education, whether through formal or informal experience, is a bridge into being connected. My internship at Hidden Villa has been rich in education and in my eyes, most importantly, exposure. In my second year here, seasonal changes of weather, edible and ornamental agriculture, animal husbandry, environmental education, and sustainability have deeply connected me to the land and to the future. 

Tags: permaculture, Hidden Villa internship program, intern, internships, externship, green skills training Read More

After graduation, I headed down the well-trodden path of a 9-to-5 office job, and under fluorescent lights I whistled while I worked inside a world of spreadsheet cells and cyberspace.  I was more than lucky enough to have access to a grocery store with copious amounts of fresh organic produce and live where a farmer’s market took place almost every day of the week. Despite the knowledge gained about the food system through my education, my work and lifestyle kept me very removed from the production of my food.  It’s the same systematic distancing that keeps most of us from seeing the connection between our strawberry milkshakes and manure.

Tags: Manure to Meadow to Milkshakes, internships, environmental education, MESA, Multinational Exchange for Sustainable Agriculture, Community Supported Agriculture Read More

What is organic? A broad definition would be any food that isn’t exposed to synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. But anyone who grows organic food will probably give a different definition of what organic means to them.

Tags: sustainability, permaculture, Homeless Garden Project, WWOOF, internships, CSA, Community Supported Agriculture, farming, organic Read More

If you haven’t ever thought about it (and until recently, I hadn’t) the word “intern” has an interesting etymology. From the French interner or “to confine within set limits,” the word has use as both a noun and transitive verb. However, the definition can very greatly depending on its grammatical use.

Intern (in-turn) -  vb
1. ( tr ) to detain or confine (foreign or enemy citizens, ships, etc), especially during wartime - noun
2. chiefly  ( US ) a student or recent graduate receiving practical training in a working environment

(Source: Collins World English Dictionary)

But in common parlance, especially among twenty-somethings an internships is often known as “the modern equivalent of slavery, except nowadays, people are actually willing.”

So where do we fall? Confinement, like on an enemy ship? Or practical training?

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Mondays have a bad reputation, definitely the underdog of the week. It is the day when you see a pile on the desk, when messages are checked and coffee gets spilled, the day blamed for the end of weekends and vacations. Mondays have even become the most likely day for a break up. But at Hidden Villa? Not quite the same, especially for interns...

Tags: internships, Deer Hollow, Full Circle Farm, Taft Elementary, Hidden Villa internship program, partnerships, Hidden Villa Environmental Education Program, HVEEP, environmental education, farm guides, education Read More