 Hello, and welcome back to Farming Matters. So today I am really excited to be joined by Nathan Scholf. Hi, Nathan. He is our special guest from Indiana, and he's here to share a little bit about creating youth leaders in sustainable urban agriculture. So I would be remiss if I don't also celebrate Marie Flanagan, our North Central Sarah Communications Program coordinator, as well as the producer of the show. Hey, Marie. Hi. Welcome, Nathan. Thank you. So this is a little bit of a slight variation on our Farming Matters theme, but it's all about supporting and engaging our future farmers and existing farmers in sustainable agriculture practices. And Nathan, it's going to share about his little bit about his work and his journey working with youth leaders in urban areas in Indiana. But Nathan, tell us more. Like, what got you going on this project? And how did it shake out? Oh, no. Thank you guys for having me here today. And yeah, I wanted to submit a really exciting project to work on if any of you are familiar with the Youth Education Grants. It's a relatively low funding amount relative to many other Sarah grants, so many other grants folks might be interested in. But I think when I just started an extension in 2019, and one of my colleagues, Alexander Pettigrew, had had a really great relationship and had a deep interest in youth engagement and youth education, and had been working with Esther Bacalai from Feligii Hiawa, who's our project partner. And then mentioned a lot of the students she was working with were interested in the topic of sustainable ag, ways to be maybe to grow produce locally for themselves, but also a lot of the residents that live in the neighborhood. And so we were talking about other projects focused on composting, soil health, all these different topics. And we're aiming for some research and education projects, partnership grants. And we felt like, well, maybe we should take some of these ideas and try to fit them into the youth education grant, because to our knowledge, many people weren't really applying for those limitations in terms of funding became, I'd say, positive challenges for us. Like we look at, well, we don't have a lot of funds to print materials or maybe buy a lot of supplies and resources, but I think we can do quite a bit with what we have. And we have a lot of connections in these different communities and folks that can really elevate the project. But more importantly, we had a lot of really engaged youth that were involved at the Feligii Highway Center. So we felt like we had kind of a really good recipe to put this together and a lot of excitement. And so I really have to give a lot of credit to Alex and Astaire for being kind of the impetus behind this and me kind of being new in my role and learning a lot from them and being just fortunate to work with them. So how did you like start? Sometimes it's like, oh my gosh, I have this idea. We know there's a definite need and interest from youth. Like, what was a little bit about your process with this project? That's a really, really great question. I think that I feel like we were thinking statewide initially, we were looking at all these of the projects and thinking that composting was coming up as a topic of interest or of concern with a lot of urban producers, urban farmers, and not mainly distribution, looking at ways to kind of aggregate resources. Like we know people are buying from different places or actually many times they're buying from the same producers, but they were paying really heavy transportation fee, very expensive costs associated with getting those inputs from one point to another. So we were thinking initially about, maybe this would be more of a composting project and we're looking at different resources for that. Then we started to think, well, there are a lot of youth that are interested in agriculture, different aspects of it. And Alex was the one who mentioned, maybe there are a lot of curriculums that she had experienced like Learn, Grow, Eco, Junior Master Gardener, things like that, that could kind of fit into, we could kind of maybe take some of these composting lessons and a lot of, we noticed too, a lot of different farms, at least in Indianapolis, I know in Gary, Fort Wayne had composting on site. That was a big part of the educational focus too, was having more of a holistic approach to agriculture. So we kind of felt like, well, that could be a kind of point to focus on. And then we started to look at the budget for this grant. We started to lean into this, realized we feasibly couldn't do two sites and do everything we wanted to do. And having that relationship that she, that Alex has built with Astaire, really felt like that's a great site to do it. And Astaire has a really, a background in chemistry as a great, amazing educator. We really felt like she's a great leader in the community too, that she would be just a wonderful person to work with and wouldn't really know how to help us, supplement things we wanted to do, but bring a lot of knowledge to the project. So I felt like we had a lot of good pieces there. Also want to mention Kevin Allison from the Soil Water Conservation District. He's been a partner with Extension for many years, worked with a lot of folks at Purdue and he was willing to come, do some hands-on training, do some different virtual training too. So we felt like we had some really good pieces together to move the project forward if we were funded. So you did some of the background, but what was it like to like, how did the youth sort of receive the project? Were they just like, oh well, here, what's the Extension or what's going on? What was that like? What I found interesting too, and I think this kind of goes off the theme of the project, there was just a lot of listening involved and letting youth kind of talk through and tell some stories about themselves and what they'd like to learn. Like what is it, we can explain what we want to do with the project, but within that kind of framework, what is it you guys want to get out of this? What are skills that you feel like you're currently lacking? What's, you know, what's of interest to people? We got a lot of responses. That was one of the, actually, the first times we can meet in person prior to the pandemic. And we had a really, really great conversation with the students there. And what did the youth want to get out of it? So a lot of them mentioned, like wanting to develop leadership skills. It was one thing that came up over and over. Many of them said that, one thing that came up, and I remember a few students saying something along the lines of, well, if I wanna be involved in farming or I wanna be able to do this maybe for a living, like what are some angles I could explore that could do that? Like, and the folks mentioned everything from hydroponics to, you know, farm management. A lot of it was kind of all over the board, but I think that they could see that in front of them, there were raised beds, there's a high tunnel there. At the time, there's some livestock there too. There are a lot of different pieces of agriculture that we could focus on and build off of. So I think that's where we're kind of highlighting that each one of these things provides a learning opportunity and kind of can really maybe get them there too and focus on that. And again, like, aside from this project, there's so much happening there on a daily basis that a lot of the students are already kind of bought into the momentum and the curriculum and the emphasis and the focus of that project partner. So we had that, we were forced to have that benefit too, but there are also, there are some successful urban farms in that area that we can point to that, you know, hey, that what you're talking about doing is actually being done, you know, in your area, but by folks like you. So I think that was a nice thing to be able to refer to and highlight at times. But I think we got done in some of the nitty gritty pieces and topics like we could talk about soil health and that's one thing we leaned into it with, but within that, we kind of asked people like, what do you know about it? What does that mean to you? And we got a lot of different responses and some things that like, you know, they want to learn about nutrient management. They, you know, things that you, maybe I didn't expect you to mention, but maybe it's more common, but I thought we're like, they didn't want to contribute to nutrient leaching. They wanted to have beneficial insects. They wanted to, you know, really foster that. I would say more of like an organic management approach to farming. And so I think it was interesting to hear all this and most of the students seem to really buy into that. One thing that came up over and over is wanting to know where their food was from. Like really wanting to have the hands-on experience and understand that I grew this, I, you know, I fertilized it, I managed it. I was, you know, watering these plants and I was responsible for producing, you know, creating healthy produce that fed them and their families and other folks in their neighborhood. These are all really impactful things for us to hear and things for us to think about when we're scoping out this project. So the youth, did some of the parents end up inheriting some pet chickens? I know like backyard chickens was a topic or that way I had to draw the line there in the apartment or I don't know. Not that I'm aware of and that. They did, but I will say that a lot of youth were really interested in, you know, kind of the, you know, either production of eggs and health benefits of that is when that came up, but also like almost more of the composting piece of, you know, the chicken coop and the different staging areas and those things. It's, you know, they have a very holistic approach there at the center too. So that's an integrated part of all this too. So I think it's really, it was really helpful that we have that site too to kind of have this, we could move from one area to the other and teach so many different things and it's right there as hands on. So, but yeah, I'm not that I'm aware of. I don't think anybody had to take any chickens home. So currently youth educator grants are offered at $6,000. What are your thoughts about the youth educators going after a grant at that amount and what are the benefits of that level of funding? That's a good question because I think, I think it's a good opportunity because if you're new to extension or maybe, you know, new to writing grants, it's a, I think it's a very approachable grant in process. I think it's a, and it can really be impactful, but I think I would encourage more people to maybe aim for them too and to pursue them because I think, as you know, I mentioned here, there's a lot that you want to accomplish or you kind of maybe compare it to other projects you're working on that have much more funding available. And you sometimes are on the risk of trying to do more than you can do with the dollar amount you have. But I also think that those limitations can kind of create some really creative opportunities because you have to work with what you got and find ways to be, you know, do things affordably and timely and within the scope of the project. So I think it's a good way for people to learn if they're new and use that maybe as an opportunity to feel out an idea or a concept and then build it, build upon that for a bigger grant, which is what we did. What's been happening since this project for you or like, that's kind of a bad question, way to ask the question, what's next? What would you continue to do more of? Well, so interestingly, like when I was working on this project, there was another research and education grant I was working with, with a colleague here in our horticulture and landscape architecture program, Dr. Catherine Orvis. We had been working on that project in Gary and they've been serving at the Copi on that. And then when she found out that Alex and I as stair head got this youth education grant and Catherine is, Lisa, junior master gardener program has a long history of working with youth. She was really interested in building upon that. And so we submitted for a research and education grant with the same project partner and we recently funded that, that project was recently funded. So we're kind of building upon that youth leadership component, youth entrepreneurship going with that theme. And then we've got more opportunity and more funding to have more resources to do more onsite, hands-on experiential learning. And so, and we're in an era now where we can do that again too. So that I think has already been a great opportunity to do that. And she was very intentional about learning what we did, how we did it, factoring that into that grant. Cause if we were funded, there's gonna be some overlap there to make sure that we weren't duplicating efforts. And yeah, but really building upon that and trying to take it to another level. So I guess she could say it. So, and again, having the willingness of the project partner Astaire who I mentioned before, she has a long history of working with extension, working with all these people I mentioned. So making sure that she had the capacity for this and the willingness to wanna do it. And she did. And so I think we've been very fortunate. So that will start year two of that project will start this summer with the educational pieces. So we're really looking forward to that. Thank you. I am inspired and blown away and just how this momentum keeps caring you forward. And just, I'll just really appreciate your time and just being really generous with sharing what you learned and like giving some voice to what you've learned on the ground and what's going on in your community and good stuff all around with the soil and the soil. I wanna say, I gotta say thank you to Sarah again for the flexibility and during the pandemic and being willing to extend the project. And let us revise the budget. And there was a lot of travel to get, to be there from drive from campus to be on site and to be present. But I think it was really impactful. But yeah, overall I think it was a lot like I mentioned before, just a lot of unanticipated interactions and questions from folks that I haven't really found with other projects in a good way. I think it's been really fun because just that I get a random email from someone. I heard about this project. Someone told me about it, told me more and that's a great opportunity, I feel like to talk about our project partner and what they're doing, but also to hopefully that gives someone some ideas or maybe more confidence to apply for a grant like this on their own.