My second week!

Beautiful northeast Iowa! This was on my way from Decorah to West Union Elementary. I had to pull over- it was so picture-perfect!

What my commutes out to my schools look like the whole way...

Sorting the tomatoes for the school's food service director. These pictures are out of order!

Weighing the tomatoes so we can log our harvests. We let the kids stand on the scale with the tomatoes and then subtract out the student's weight and the weight of the tray.

5th grade students working together to harvest yellow tomatoes. (By the way, all of these students' parents signed a permission form for them to be photographed and published.)

The tomato that looked like a rubber duck- the kids were SO excited! (See my blog for more details!)

The kiddies and me with the "rubber duck."

Helping them harvest the tomatoes!

Luther's convocation with Tracy Kidder

Hi all!

Work is starting to pick up, which I'm really excited about. I'm still having some trouble getting in touch with two of my schools' food service directors and wellness committees, but I've gotten to the North Fayette school district three times now. I sent more emails to all the members of my wellness committees at my two other school districts, so if they don't respond by next Wednesday I decided that I'm going to give them a call.

At the end of last week, I went to Luther College's convocation with my boss Emily and the other AmeriCorps and FoodCorps service members. It really made me miss UF! :( Their convocation speaker was Tracy Kidder, an author and journalist who wrote "Mountains Beyond Mountains" and "Strength in What Remains." I thought it was so funny that Mr. Kidder spoke at Luther's convocation because he actually spoke at UF when I was a freshman as apart of UF's inaugural year of the freshmen common reading program! After hearing him speak, I really want to read "Strength in What Remains." I read "Mountains Beyond Mountains" at UF as a freshman and it was very inspiring.

Last weekend I went to Omaha for a family friend's Bar Mitzvah- it was so much fun to go to my old synagogue and see my grandma and all of my best Nebraskan friends! On Tuesday, I got interviewed for The Jewish Daily Forward- they are writing an article on FoodCorps and Jewish FoodCorps service members. I will post it to my blog when it is done! I also went to North Fayette's first organizational wellness committee meeting in West Union, IA. I got to meet the superintendent, the wellness chairperson (the district nurse), and a couple other important people in the school. At the meeting, we spoke about the schools' wellness goals for this year and their past successes. I also told them a little about FoodCorps, and they seemed super excited about my involvement. The superintendent even wanted to put me in the yearbook and make me a staff ID badge to let the students know who I am and that I am apart of the school's community. I was really excited.

On Wednesday, I went to the West Union Elementary School (part of North Fayette school district) to help harvest muskmelon and tomatoes at the school garden. The school's special needs students came in the morning to help us harvest, sort, and weigh the gardens muskmelon (we only harvested about 12 melons- the rest rotted!). After finishing up with the melons, the school's 5th graders came to the garden to harvest cherry tomatoes. Before they began harvesting, Barb (the garden director) and I went into their classroom and taught the students how to pick the tomatoes and how to sort the good ones from the bad ones. I also got to introduce myself and explain what FoodCorps is (I came up with a standard 30 second speech today to make it easier since I'm always explaining FoodCorps and my role as a service member). The 5th graders had so much fun harvesting the tomatoes! They even found a yellow tomato that was rather deformed and it looked like a rubber duck- the kids LOVED it. I took a picture of it so you can see!

Today, Sonja (one of the AmeriCorps members) and I reorganized our office (yes, I have my own office!). We brought lamps and posters and books to make the office more comfortable. I will have to post pictures of our office later! I will take some tomorrow. I also got a call from a super nice lady who lives 30 miles outside Decorah who wants me to babysit (my boss knows her). She said she is going to invite me to dinner in a few days and I can start babysitting for her regularly! (She pays me for mileage and driving time.) I also scheduled two jobs babysitting for my boss' daughters- hooray for extra money! :)

I'm leaving for Minneapolis tomorrow for my grandma's 75th birthday. I'm really excited to see my mom's side of the family! I will write more next week!

Have a great weekend everyone!