Summit Academy School for Alternative Learners — Warren Middle and Secondary — 10th-graders MacKenzie VanDyke and Gabe Bell sell produce freshly picked from their school garden at the Warren Farmers Market. The students’ engagement in the market helps create community resilience and empowerment, their science teacher, Sarah Thomas, said. Submitted photo

WARREN — A group of vendors at the weekly Warren Farmers Market is creating a buzz with their vegetables, dried herbs and homemade wares.

Mini pumpkins, peppers and tomatoes are among the veggies being grown and sold by students from Summit Academy School for Alternative Learners — Warren Middle and Secondary. Bright blue flowerpots embellished with paintings of animated characters like Charlie Brown and Goku, chocolate-dipped pretzel rods and burnished wooden cooking utensils reveal the students’ creativity.

Tenth-grader MacKenzie VanDyke, whose painted pots sell for $10, said she enjoys everything about the farmers market and the journey to it. Over the course of the summer, she and about 10 of her classmates planted and cared for a traditional garden, five raised beds and a pollinator garden on the grounds of their Moncrest Drive NW school.

Science teacher Sarah Thomas began the garden project last year as a way for students to receive hands-on lessons in science, enjoy the benefits of gardening and healthy eating, and generate a little income along the way.

“I envisioned the school garden as an interactive outdoor classroom in which students could engage in kinesthetic educational and therapeutic activities, and they could also learn to grow their own foods,” Thomas said.

Thomas adds that much of Warren is considered a food desert, resulting in limited access to fresh, healthy foods. “It’s important to me to empower my students to live a healthy lifestyle,” she said.

Sales from garden produce and dried herbs will go toward next summer’s garden, which not only involves digging in the dirt, but striking a few yoga poses as well. Local certified yoga instructor Kyla Bossard led the students through yoga sessions during their

garden workshops this year.

“Planting and caring for the gardens over the summer has gotten me outdoors more, which has affected me and my mood in a positive way,” said VanDyke, who adds that in addition to embracing gardening, the experience has inspired her to create more art. Her painted pottery, along with baked goods, have tallied about $100 in sales so far.

VanDyke and her Summit Academy classmates will be selling garden goodies, home-baked treats and handmade arts and crafts at the Warren Farmers Market at 170 N. Park Ave. 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“Providing youth with opportunities to be engaged in their community shows them the power for positive change that they hold as individuals and the power that we hold as a community when we come together,” Thomas says. “An empowered community is a resilient community.”

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