Tasting the fruits of their labors

LYNN – Workers, supporters and Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy sat down to lunch amid the splendor of the Ingalls School garden Tuesday to celebrate the Food Project’s final farm lunch of the season and taste some of its harvest.”We’re really here to celebrate summer and all the delicious food ? and the farmers,” said Food Project Director Jay Harrison. “I feel like they always get left off the list of chefs.”The Food Project is wrapping up its 22nd growing season, according to Executive Director Selvin Chambers. Started in 1991 by an urban minister and a farmer, the goal of the project has always been the same: to show kids how they can make a positive impact on society by growing food and learning about social issues.Anthony Cisneros, 18, joined the project last year.”I thought it was just a job,” he said. “I didn’t know I would be learning at the same time.”Cisneros joked that he is not a fan of bugs or working outdoors, but he has come to love being a farmer and surprised even himself when he stayed on after summer turned to fall.”My parents never thought I would stay with this job,” he said. “They were surprised I stuck it out.”While much of working for the Food Project includes actually working the land and growing food it also includes what Tatiana Fernandez Sota called intensive workshops. Carlos Perez, 15, said the workshops cover subjects such as sexism, race and agriculture, and they lay down guidelines the young workers are expected to follow.The kids that sign onto the food project also learn life skills, said Ryan Coulanges, 16. When asked what was the toughest thing he encountered during his year with the organization Cisneros didn’t talk about pulling weeds, tilling fields or planting. He said his biggest trial was public speaking and he is proud to say he has overcome it.”Before I joined I was really quiet and kind of shy,” he said. “When they told me during a workshop that I would have to speak up ? that was really challenging to me.”Cisneros jokes that, comparatively, he is still quiet, but he is also able to speak up and is not afraid to take the lead on projects, which he never would have done in the past.”I’m really proud of that,” he said.Trice Hansen said if you had told him a few years ago he’d be a leader with the Food Project he would have called you crazy. He liked his video games, he said. No one was more shocked than he to find he loved life with the food project.”First and foremost I was on a farm,” he said. “No one in Lynn would ever think I’d end up on a farm.”Hansen learned to build raised garden beds, volunteered with relief organizations, which received about 40 percent of the Food Project’s total harvest and making tight bonds with other youth. This summer he worked as an assistant crew leader and when he saw the faces of the new kids just starting with the program, he said he knew that was just what he looked like on his first day.”Now they’re doing what I did,” he said. “They are becoming the change you want to see in the world.”Kennedy said she remembered when Harrison first approached her with the idea for the Ingalls garden, and the biggest concern was where the water would come from to care for it. She praised Harrison for producing smart, articulate confident kids.”You’ve given us better youth and made us a better community,” she said.As diners noshed on grilled chicken marinated with Food Project herbs, salad greens picked fresh that morning from the Beverly farm and an orzo and feta cheese salad with fresh cherry tomatoes and herbs, Chambers made one demand of his lunch guests.”I would ask you to share these stories with other people,” he said. “Let people know.”