By YES! Coordinator Kory Klebe
On Jan. 27th the Greenhouse Winter Workshop took place in Spicer, MN. This was a small workshop that the New London-Spicer (NLS) YES! team hosted for the Lac qui Parle Valley YES! team.
The two teams both have greenhouses at their schools. The day started with harvesting lettuce greens together for their opening ice breaker. While harvesting, there where short presentations from Teresa Copley, coach of the NLS YES! team and the team members themselves, Master Gardener Bonita Kallestad, and Tracy Tebben, an Agriculture teacher at NLS who was the lead in designing and building the NLS greenhouse. An extended Q&A followed each presentation.
After the greenhouse visit, the Lac qui Parle team met up with past NLS YES! team members to discuss how previous projects had been implemented. The one that seemed to garner the most attention was the bulk milk dispenser in the lunchroom at NLS. During the lunch meal a lunch room cashier and custodian even commented on the ease, convenience, and reduction on milk waste they had noticed compared to milk in cartons.
The last stop on the way out of town for Lac qui Parle was at the MinnWest Technology Campus in Willmar. This is where they met Aaron Larson and Nancy Johnson. Aaron is a former Willmar YES! team member and current volunteer at a greenhouse that is planned to be utilized by a food hub. The greenhouse had been revitalized as a YES! project. Nancy Johnson is working to help get the food hub, dispenser of local foods, up and running.
It was a fun and a successful day of sharing ideas!
