Casey Griffin is a senior at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, majoring in American Studies with an emphasis in education. During the summer of 2013 Casey joined Paul Higgins as an intern to look at rural life in Knox County, Ohio from a local food prospective. Casey was able to interact with the Mayor of Mount Vernon, the city council, the Knox County Commissioners as well as other county service and support organizations. As part of her goal Casey organized, promoted and brought together different segments of the community for 'Family Day at the Market'. The event promoted the use of fresh, local foods to all ages and focused on introducing where does our food come from along with the importance of eating fresh fruits and vegetables daily to young children.
During the summer of 2013 I held an internship through the Rural Life Center. I shadowed and worked with Paul Higgins known throughout the Mount Vernon Community, as Chef Paul. Though Paul embraces this title, it also makes him laugh as much of his career has not actually involved being a chef. Paul is a businessman who, among other things, started his own company. But now Paul is retired, living in Apple Valley, Ohio. He spends his time working with many institutions throughout this community to encourage local residents to eat fresh, local food.
Once a month The Centerburg Senior Services Center distributes over 11,000 pounds of food from the Mid-Ohio Food Bank. Like many of the events I experienced, the distribution is run almost entirely by volunteers. Paul and I would get there before the food arrived, set up the kitchen as well as a display station and then wait for the truck to arrive. When it did, and only then, would we discover what was on the truck. Then Paul would quickly put together a couple of recipes mainly using the ingredients from the food bank. I would help Paul cook until we had enough of each item to start handing out samples at which point I would stand at our display table and talk to recipients about what they were eating and how they could make it themselves.
Every Saturday morning Paul and I would go the Mount Vernon Farmers' Market and talk to vendors about how they were doing. For one Market we created demonstration of garlic scape pesto and bruschetta, cooking publicly and handing out recipes. We advertised the demonstration on the radio and encouraged attendance. Many people came to the market that day and we learned from vendors later that they sold more than average amounts of tomatoes, garlic scapes, bread and herbs; all the things we used in our demonstration.
During the first part of my summer, I spent some time working with The Harvest at the Woodward, a new local foods store in downtown Mount Vernon. I mainly helped them create a website for the store with write-ups about its function and an interview with the manager as well as a database of vendors and the products they offered.
Once a month, Paul and I would attend meetings of the Task Force For Older Adults, a group that includes important figures in the senior services community such as directors of senior centers and assisted living homes. Paul and I also visited many individual farms around the area, attended the Owl Creek Produce Auction a few times, and visited Barb Mickley who runs The Sanctuary in Danville.
Paul and I also ran monthly clinics at the Knox County Health Department for WIC recipients. WIC is a welfare program for women with infants and children. There is a new program in Ohio that gives WIC recipients extra vouchers that can only be used on food grown in Ohio. Tami Ruhl, director of the program in Knox County, explained that many of the recipients were not using their vouchers because they did not know what local produce to buy or what easy recipes to cook with that food. So Paul and I created a demonstration of four different meal options that could all be easily cooked using only items available to WIC recipients focusing on using the produce that was in season at the time.
After spending time with all of these different aspects of the community, I decided that a large event focusing attention on local food would be beneficial for the community in many ways. Working with Sabrina Schirtzinger, the educator at Ohio State University Extension, we created activities for children based around local produce. Tami Ruhl set up a table to hand out the last coupons for WIC recipients to use at the market that day. I worked with Emma Strickler, the Wiggin Street Garden Intern to create an activity where children could plant seeds and take them home. We contacted a catering chef who put together activities that children could play with and then eat. I booked a local musician who played guitar and sang during the event. And I collected donations from almost every vendor at the market to put in baskets that we raffled off every half hour. Kids and parents could get raffle tickets by participating in any of the activities. Paul and I promoted the even through the newspaper, the radio station and emails at Kenyon. We also spoke to the County Council and Mayor Mavis about the idea beforehand. With the mayor's, we then addressed the city council, which has televised meetings, describing the event.