Tucker Girl Wins Award at Social Studies Fair

Marley Bridges, a sixth-grader at Tucker Middle School, won a Best in Economics, Class I award at the recent Georgia Social Studies Fair. Her project was titled What are the Economic Effects of Farmers' Markets in Georgia. She used her love of the Tucker Farmers' Market and her time volunteering there for Seth Hancock of Dillwood Farms as inspiration. 

Sarah Bridges, Marley's mother, sent Patch the following summary:

Marley loves the idea of local people eating local healthy food. Her experience allowed her to talk with customers about the different vegetables Dillwood Farms sold. This included what they tasted like, the different ways you could prepare them and the healthy aspect of eating fresh local grown food.

She was also exposed to the money aspect of the business. It became very real to her that this is the way the farmers and other vendors make money and was interested in how that effected the downtown Tucker community.

Seth is the farmer manager at Dillwood Farms. He decides what gets planted, orders the seeds, grows them, harvests them and then sells them himself at local area farmers' markets and restaurants. Having an opportunity to talk to Seth and see the impact on his life showed her it importance of farmers' markets everywhere. 

When the time came to begin working on a project for her sixth grade social studies class, Marley chose to show just how important farming and farmers' markets are to the Georgia Economy. 

Her social studies teacher, Cherly Ebanks Manning, was very supportive and encouraged Marley to go for it. After Marley did some on line research she decided to conduct her own surveys at the Tucker Farmers' Market and downtown Tucker. She put together a list of questions for the merchants on Main Street, the market vendors and the market customers.

After analysing the data, she was able to show the positive impact the farmers' market had on downtown and the positive impact the farmers' market on the vendors. She also found out how much the customers liked the Tucker Farmers' Market and what they would like to see happen in the future. 

She then interviewed Nancy Qarmout, who started the Tucker Farmers' Market, shared the survey results and found out why Nancy started the market. Marley won first place at Tucker Middle School's fair and moved on to the Dekalb County fair. She won best in economics over all at the county fair along with a spot in the East Metro Regional Fair where she competed with Dekalb, Rockdale and Henry county students. 

Again she won best in show and a spot to compete in the Georgia State Fair. In each fair you are interviewed by the judges one on one. They ask various questions about your project and what you would do to further your your project if you had the chance. Marley's idea of furthering her project extended to the school system. She would like to see more local schools and local farmers connecting to allow children access to healthy food and to educate them about healthy food choices.

She enjoys eating fresh vegetables and wants kids to know how good they are and that they are good for you. She would choose raw carrots over potato chips any day. She not only shared her idea with the judges - she acted on it. 

After the Summit Marley brought the information she learned to her school. She presented to her Social Studies class and contacted the science teacher at Tucker Middle who is a Master Gardener. She is excited to work in the school garden next year and show other kids how much fun and how important farming is to the community. She is also very excited for the Tucker Farmers' Market to begin again on Thursday, April 4.

We are very proud of Marley and her drive to pursue what she's interested in.  She hopes to make a difference in the community over the years. Along with her Social Studies Fair success, Marley is a straight A student at Tucker Middle and is involved in dance outside of school. She takes Ballet and Tap at Decatur School of Ballet and is just finishing her ninth season dancing there.

Thank you for your interest in Marley's story. She is a pretty awesome kid and amazes me every day with her strength, courage, heart and mind.