Mitchell Elementary Hosts Its First Farmers' Market

Wind gusts of up to 49 mph didn't keep students and their families away from Mitchell's first student-run farmers’ market on Thursday evening.

In addition to the sale of produce from the Mitchell garden and from local farmers, the market also included live music, art displays and student-led garden tours. was there with a refreshments booth and provided a nutrition education arts and crafts booth.

The market kicked off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Mitchell School Garden. Mitchell broke ground for its garden, which is the first school garden in Ames, last spring. Shellie Orngard, executive director of the , said there were three goals in creating the garden: to teach students about health, nutrition and well-being; to help students become academically successful; and to engage the community.

"The success of something like this depends on the community," said Orngard. "It can't be done by children and teachers alone."

Mitchell Principal Pam Stangeland said the concept for the school garden started about two years ago when students were going home for winter break. Because Mitchell has a high percentage of students with low socio-economic status, staff were concerned that some students might not get enough to eat while they were home. Stangeland and Penny Brown Huber, Prairie Rivers Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D) executive director, decided to start planning and raising funds for a school garden to try to combat this problem and to teach the students about nutrition.

"The idea was to have kids engaged in every particular point, from layout to deciding what to plant to harvesting," said Huber. The level of student participation was a priority for Stangeland as well.

"The question was, "How do we integrate this into the curriculum?" said Stangeland. "It had to have some educational value.... The garden has helped bring math and science to life for the students."

As the garden plans progressed, more community groups started getting involved. Wheatsfield Cooperative had been involved with community gardens before and wanted to support the Mitchell garden, Wheatsfield Operations Manager Bronwyn Beatty-Hansen said. 

"Part of the cooperative value system is concern for the community," Beatty-Hansen said.

A garden like Mitchell's takes a lot of time and energy to create and maintain, but volunteers have continued to support it. Wheatsfield helped construct the garden's compost bin as well as benches in the garden for students to sit on during their lessons. When the students ran into setbacks with their green bean crop, Wheatsfield donated green beans to the school so the kids could taste them.

The garden's plan called for each grade level at Mitchell to have its own raised bed, so the Prairie Rivers RC&D Board of Directors volunteered to build the beds out of Iowa oak. According to Huber, students, teachers, parents and other community members have logged more than 700 hours of volunteer time at the garden.

Proceeds from Thursday's farmers’ market will go toward funding next year’s garden project. When asked about further goals for the garden, Stangeland mentioned that she'd like to be able to send produce home with the students and invite community members to pick ripe produce from the garden based on the time they've spent volunteering.

"I would love to get more people in the community involved," said Stangeland.

Anyone who is interested in volunteering at the Mitchell garden can contact Kristen Loria at the Story County Volunteer Center at 515-268-5323 or at kristen.loria@vcstory.org.