Juneberry Ridge Educational Foundation

Holistic Management. The holistic management program is an 8 day intensive course divided into two, four-day sessions. This course is conducted through the education foundation and taught by Daniel Griffith, an accredited professional through the Savory Institute. We had 11 participants, 6 college students and 5 current farmers. The objectives of this course are to train farmers in holistic management to study and understand the complexity of the natural ecosystems and help farmers develop a framework for decision making to help them regenerate land and grow sustainable profits.

Farm Camp. We hosted 2 weeks of farm camp with a total of 26 students. Week 1 was for grades 3 - 5, with 15 attendees and week 2 was for grades 5 - 8 with 11 attendees. The goal of farm camp is to teach students about regenerative agriculture and provide them with an immersive farm experience. During the week students learn about soil health, livestock, nature, aquaponics, and plant production. Students are able to participate in hands-one activities such as harvesting vegetables, caring for animals, and determining soil texture. Through this program we want to educate students and inspire them to be involved in agriculture.

Internships. The education foundation established two internship programs: one for high school students and one for college students. The high school internship is a semester long, 16-week program where students work in one area of the living classroom for 10 hours per week. We had three students from Stanly county participate in the internship program and earn high school course credit for completing the program. This program is geared toward students who are interested in regenerative agriculture and considering agriculture as a possible career. The goal of the high school internship program is to provide students with work experience and inspire them to pursue a career in agriculture. The college internship is a 10-week summer program for students with an agriculture related major. We had 22 applicants and were able to accept 6 students into the program. The interns rotate through the different areas of the farm to gain work experience. The goal of this program is to allow students the opportunity to work on an operational regenerative farm to teach them regenerative agriculture practices. By exposing students to regenerative agriculture and teaching them farm techniques we hope this will help them in their future career in agriculture.

School Groups. We had 284 k-12 students attend on-farm programming this fiscal year, 140 students came for an introductory experience to tour the living classroom and be introduced to regenerative agriculture. 144 students participated in a more immersive experience spending a half-day on in our living classroom exploring different agriculture topics. The goal of these introductory based programs is to introduce students to regenerative agriculture and show them what happens in our living classroom. We hope by engaging k-12 students early on we can spark their interest in agriculture so that when they are older, they will want to be involved in agriculture.