Shared Adventures

Shared Adventures Field Trip - Click for Gallery

Life Lab partnered with Shared Adventures, a local nonprofit which organizes recreation activities for people with special needs, to host an inclusive Farm-to-Fork Field Trip for 14 adults and 2 children from the special needs community. Despite mobility limitations, our field trip participants explored the CASFS Farm and harvested a medley of fruits and vegetables to taste as they identified edible plant parts. One culinary highlight we discovered was the collard leaf wraps with sweet beets and yellow string beans inside...totally raw! We also harvested apples out on the Farm, and individuals found unique ways to turn the wheel of our apple press to make delicious apple juice in the Garden Classroom. Both the adult and children participants marveled at how easy and accessible it was to transform our harvest into tasty treats. We turned corn seeds into flour, flour into masa (corn dough), and masa into warm tortillas. We even shook cream until it transformed into butter we spread on our ground up flattened seeds (tortillas)! Field trip participants got a chance to visit with our chickens and worms and become acquainted with their roles in the garden too. One participant said that up until that day she had not been able to attend an outdoor field trip because of her special need. We were thrilled to make the adventure happen. Thank you to Shared Adventures and the special needs community for making that afternoon so scrumptious and exploratory!
- Allison O'Sullivan, Life Lab Garden Educator