As you all recall, last week, we had an adventure and met up in the freezing snow to see our community partner, Robin.  A lot has happened since then and this week has been filled with many more adventures!  We visited a breakfast program under the Breakfast Club of Canada and was able to see why our project matters.  Visiting the breakfast program made us realize the importance of connecting local farmers to schools and the difference it would make to the breakfast program.  Children and families attending the breakfast program would be able to enjoy a larger variety of locally grown fruits and vegetables, as well as, learn about what is grown locally here.

Weekly Objectives

February 27th-March 3rd

• Continue cold-calling farmers from the directory on Google Drive
• Visit the Nat Bailey Farmer’s Market on March 4th
• Submit a revised draft of the 2nd blog post by March 5th

Achievements

We have made good progress with calling the farmers and visiting the Farmer’s Market this past Saturday.  The weather was strange on Saturday; hailing midway while we were walking around the Farmer’s Market! At the market, we were able to connect with several vendors and distribute a few of Robin’s business cards in the process. We were encouraged when one farm owner told us that they have been wanting to connect with a program like ours, and were willing to come on participate with our program right away!

March 6th-10th

• Visiting Kiwassa Neighbourhood House Breakfast Program, which serves the students who attend Tillicum Community Annex, on March 6th
• The check-in meeting  with Robin on March 3rd  was postponed to March 6th

 

Achievements

We met with Robin on Monday and visited a breakfast program held at the Kiwassa Neighbourhood House, which serves the students at Tillicum Community Annex.  The program opens Monday to Friday at  8:00 a.m. and ends at 8:55 a.m. All students are welcome and parents or guardians  are encouraged to bring their children to the breakfast program.  We had the pleasure of helping by cutting the fruits and serving some breakfast.  Typically on  Mondays, the breakfast program serves a simpler breakfast compared to the rest of the week, consisting of healthy cereal options with milk, fresh fruit, and yogurt and fruit smoothies.  There are no hot items on Monday’ s menu, because the facility is closed on the weekends, and there is not enough time to prepare more extravagant breakfast options. , The menu for the rest of the week however, consists of  egg sandwiches, pancakes, oatmeal, French toast, etc. all with the option of seasonal fruit.

 

Moment of Significant Change

During our tutorial session, our T.A. had us graph what our Moment of Significant Change was thus far into our project. Through graphing our emotions vs. time we came to realize  how similar all of our group members were feeling throughout the different stages, good and bad, of our project.  We noticed that we all started off on a ‘high’, feeling really good about how our project would unfold. However, low feelings have emerged as we have progressed through this project. Drawing this graph allowed us to collectively reflect on why we were feeling this way and identify areas we can build upon. We realized that one of the reasons why we were feeling uncertain about our project was due to the initial phone calls and visits to the local Farmer’s Markets, which had turned out to be more difficult than we had expected. Many farmers were appearing to not be interested in donating some of their product or did not answer their phone. Although we experienced some unexpected setbacks with building relationships with farmers, we are still very optimistic moving forward.   After our meeting with Robin on March 6th, we are feeling a bit steadier, and we are starting to receive more interest from farmers via phone calls and farmers-market visits – possibly due to re-accessing our approaches of contact. It is important to participate in activities like this as a group in order to reflect on our feelings about the progress of the project. This is not as easily done without a structured platform. Moving forward, we will be sure to perform more group ‘check-ins’ to ensure everyone is on the same page, and to identify areas of our group dynamics that can be improved.   We also realize that as a group we need to realize that what works in other groups, might not always work for us, as seen with Dan Barber in “The American Life” podcast when he tried to recreate the best tasting goose liver following the exact process, it did not turn out well.  

 

The Graceful Dismount

So far, we are finding that this project did not go as smoothly as we thought it would, however, as a group, we were able to quickly find solutions to our problems by thinking of the project as “having already failed” (Freakonomics, 2015).  We are learning lots from the farmers that we are calling and from the Farmer’s Markets, as well as, Robin.  Robin has been a great community partner to have as he is supportive and has given us great tools to succeed.  In addition, our instructor and T.A., Will and Carrie have been great help in outlining what is expected of us.  We plan to continue with the way we are communicating as a group as it has been successful so far.  Stay tuned to see our final farewell!

 

References
Freakonomics. (2015, May 20). Failure Is Your Friend: A Freakonomics Radio Rebroadcast [Audio file]. Retrieved from http://freakonomics.com/podcast/failure-is-your-friend-a-freakonomics-radio-rebroadcast/

This American Life. (2011, December 2).  Latin Liver [Audio file].  Retrieved from https://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/452/poultry-slam-2011?act=3