EDUCATION
Summer on the farm
APS students earn a paycheck through a South Valley agriculture internship
Published
What did you do on your summer break?
Cipriano Ramirez, Dezirae Tenorio and Eliana Sanchez grew and harvested their own carrots.
At the Hubbell Agricultural Center in Albuquerque鈥檚 South Valley, the three Rio Grande High School students pulled the carrots from the ground with a metal broadfork and placed them in baskets. Farmer Kimberly Patterson will take the carrots to the Los Lunas Farmers Market to be sold.
Students from Rio Grande, Sandia and Valley high schools have spent their summer learning farming, animal husbandry and food preparation through the Agriculture and Nutrition Internship Program. For many, the program also serves as their first job 鈥� the students earn $15 an hour for their work for 20 hours a week over the course of roughly two months.
鈥淚t鈥檚 something that I鈥檝e never really done before,鈥� said Ramirez, 16, whose favorite part of the program has been getting to enjoy the fruits of his labor after a harvest.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot of weeding,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut when we get to pull this stuff out, it鈥檚 really cool.鈥�
Rio Grande鈥檚 culinary teacher Janet Delgado said students learn how to read a paystub, write a r茅sum茅 and the basics of having a job for at least six hours a week. Instructors teach them child labor laws, so students know how to advocate for themselves in other workplaces, she said.
鈥淚t keeps them off their phones. It keeps them engaged,鈥� Delgado said. 鈥淭he growth you see in them over a summer is amazing.鈥�
In what she calls a 鈥渇ull-circle moment,鈥� students in the program are growing onions that will appear in the salad bars in APS school cafeterias when school starts next month.
鈥淭hey love being able to literally reap what they sow in so many ways, building the connection to the land, to their home, being able to bring food home to their families and say, 鈥業 helped grow this,鈥欌�� said Casey Holland, program coordinator for Grow the Growers, a farm training course and a partner of the APS internship.
Rio Grande is an agricultural magnet school 鈥� a nod to the South Valley鈥檚 longstanding farming history.
鈥淥ftentimes, I see these young people not super stoked about where they鈥檙e from,鈥� Holland said. 鈥淭hen, as they get plugged in to see all of the cool things happening here, and actually get to work outside and use their hands to create, they get a lot more sense of pride.鈥�
Securing funding for the program, sponsored by a mix of state and local funding and a handful of community partners, can be a challenge, Delgado said.
鈥淓very year it鈥檚 a scramble,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e need support. We need consistent support.鈥�
Delgado said program leaders have appealed to the APS Board of Education, the state Legislature and local organizations to help support the summer internships.
鈥淲e did outreach to probably 25 different agencies to finally end up with one funding source,鈥� she said. It always goes down to the last minute. It would be nicer to focus on our development, our growth, our expansion of this program, and have a steady and reliable funding source.鈥�
Sanchez, 17, will start her senior year at Rio Grande next month, and hopes to study either mechanics, real estate or agriculture after high school at Central New Mexico Community College. This summer is her second in the agriculture program.
What she likes best, she said, has been 鈥渕aking new friends, connecting with new farms and getting to know my community a little bit better.鈥�
Natalie Robbins covers education for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.
