Mcfatter Technical HS – UF Agricultural Extension Showcasing
So for those of you guys that know me personally, you’ll know that my primary brand at this current moment is Grownextdoor.
DevKnight Media is a brand that allows me to explore my creativity, and in some instances work with other brands to accomplish theirs.
That being said, this blog post will be about this past week’s visit to the UF Agricultural Extension – where we met up with Vivian and Sam in our journey to learn more about Local food.
Sam and I are acquainted through our business trading produce for Grownextdoor, actually. He’s a local urban farmer that runs Semillas Co-op with his partner Diane.
He’s also a part of the UF Master Gardener’s program, and I thought it would be interesting for them and Mcfatter to get to know each other officially.
Me and Mcfatter go wayy back. I was actually a part of their 2014 student alumni. It was there where I actually learned how to write my first lines of code and start figuring out exactly what I wanted to do with my life.
Mcfatter Tech is actually comprised of two student bodies – adult and youth. Each High School body is comprised of about 150 students or so, so you can imagine how well we were able to get to know each other and the teachers there.
They specialize in trade programs: autobody, programming, culinary, welding, the list goes on and on.
But I never saw them explore farming. Which got me thinking to put this together and complement their chef program.
Chef Patti Lang and I met a couple years back in-person during the Seed Food and Wine festival in Miami and I kept her contact ever since.
For this visit, we wanted to show a group of her plant-based program participants what it takes to get food from the ground onto their cooking plates.
To this date, I feel like there is a big gap when it comes to our true understanding of what it takes to actually make the food that we often take for granted each day.
Tomatoes, cilantro, broccoli, lettuces – Vivian (our instructor for the day) was able to shed a little bit of light on what’s growing on at their research center in Davie – luckily steps away from Mcfatter’s campus.
For me, personally, it was full circle. I was able to see my old principal and assistant principle again. I guess you could say that I didn’t turn out so bad 😉 Hopefully this will prove to be the start of a beautiful relationship with Mcfatter and UF going on forward.
UF develops theory and research material for new farmers – and hopefully Mcfatter can implement what they learn through working with initiatives like Grownextdoor – which aims to solve that food gap between farmers and chefs.