 The NEA Foundation and AT&T have partnered with Project Eats, a program of the active citizen project in New York City, which builds farms near school grounds, enabling students and the community they live in to work with experienced farmers to grow, package, and market their products as they acquire knowledge and skills. Working with the people at Project Eats, it's like we're a big family. Basically you could say it came from the bottom and now we're here. I just got hooked. I'm getting to like be more independent. It was just a new experience, it was fun. There are so many neighborhoods across this country that don't have access to fresh food. There's land in these neighborhoods, even if they're on concrete, and that we could create farms. We could start to grow our own food in our own neighborhoods. In Project Eats, we operate with this satellite farming model where we have lots of parcels that together can create these hubs of production. It was a completely empty lot full of trash, big old trash cans, and we turned it into something that was actually useful and helpful. The fact that we can actually bring a community in together over food, and we could teach them as well, so it's basically a whole bunch of good news. In addition to urban farming, Project Eats also does outreach programs in the schools to teach students the importance of sustainability. This also gives the program more exposure, therefore, more students become interested and involved. Our first school-wide project this spring, which I'm extremely happy about, was Human Energy Hubs. And basically what those are, are stationary bikes that are attached to generators that as someone pedals those bikes, they're generating power that goes into the generators that then can power directly equipment or a tool, and in the case of the schools, we had it powering a blender so students were making smoothies. And also, that energy can go straight into batteries that can then be used to power tools and equipment on the farm. One of the great things about farming as an educational tool is that you really do cross a number of disciplines and areas of life. So not only are you growing food, not only are you learning the science technology and the nature of growing food and how it affects the environment. So all of that is encompassed in farming. You also have to sell the food to be able to buy seeds for next year. Another great learning experience are the student-operated farmers markets. Students must harvest what they have grown, set up the displays for sale, and sell the products. The markets also allow the students to bond with their neighbors, building stronger communities. Today we have our farmers market and we are selling our organic locally grown produce to the community and we're giving back to them and they come and they help support us by buying all these wonderful vegetables. First we go to our site on Amboy and we harvest our vegetables and then we come here and we wash everything, prep everything, bundle everything, set it up nice and presentable for the customers. What made me interested is the fact that when I get older and I live by myself I want to grow my own food instead of going to the supermarket. My favorite part is harvesting. It's nice to see after all your hard work and after taking so much time watering and weeding you actually get to see baby plants grow into like full adults and then you harvest them and you can actually give it to people and sell it at market and it's just nice. It feels like rewarding. It's what's been amazing is the way that students naturally work together on everything we do. They're saying it's important that you work together. You don't have to say that. Students get so engaged in the work that they're doing and invested and feel responsible for it which is so key that they help each other.