Julia Jenak
A Farmer: Cultivating Relationships of Reciprocity With The Earth
I used to beg my mom for mac ‘n cheese or pizza for lunch; my diet consisted mainly of colorless foods, besides the occasional red cherry buried in my favorite pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream—Cherry Garcia. The fridge in my house was packed with fresh, organic, locally sourced produce but I had no interest in any of it. So, how exactly did I grow into a young woman who begs my mom for kale and sweet potatoes when I return home for the holidays?
I think the transformation all began with five raised garden beds--two of which were without any soil--in the back of my high school’s campus. Fairview High School’s Garden Club, more lovingly referred to as Phyte Club, was started when I was a freshman. The club was comprised exclusively of seniors who had poured four years of grant writing and trips to Home Depot into starting a garden on campus and they were desperate to find an underclassman who could take over the club after they left. The presidents of the club were my sister’s best friends and so quite naturally I was the underclassman they roped into taking on the position--it's important to note that my experience in gardening was nonexistent at that time. I took to google and recruited two of my friends with the greenest thumbs to get some plants in the ground for the summer; we pleaded with a few local plant nurseries to donate starter plants--most of which died after an early-Spring hail storm--and began building up our garden and our student membership. After three years as president of Phyte Club, I had established a group of over twenty dedicated club members, a curriculum and schedule for education and planting during weekly club meetings, a yearly plant sale with the starters we grew in the school’s indoor greenhouse that brought in over $100 in revenue every year, and a close relationship between the club and local food banks and homeless shelters to donate the produce from our harvests.
I think the transformation all began with five raised garden beds--two of which were without any soil--in the back of my high school’s campus. Fairview High School’s Garden Club, more lovingly referred to as Phyte Club, was started when I was a freshman. The club was comprised exclusively of seniors who had poured four years of grant writing and trips to Home Depot into starting a garden on campus and they were desperate to find an underclassman who could take over the club after they left. The presidents of the club were my sister’s best friends and so quite naturally I was the underclassman they roped into taking on the position--it's important to note that my experience in gardening was nonexistent at that time. I took to google and recruited two of my friends with the greenest thumbs to get some plants in the ground for the summer; we pleaded with a few local plant nurseries to donate starter plants--most of which died after an early-Spring hail storm--and began building up our garden and our student membership. After three years as president of Phyte Club, I had established a group of over twenty dedicated club members, a curriculum and schedule for education and planting during weekly club meetings, a yearly plant sale with the starters we grew in the school’s indoor greenhouse that brought in over $100 in revenue every year, and a close relationship between the club and local food banks and homeless shelters to donate the produce from our harvests.
I recently read a book called “Braiding Sweetgrass” written by a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation named Robin Wall Kimmerer. In a chapter dedicated to the three sisters style of farming, Kimmerer writes:
“People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore the relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, ‘Plant a garden.’ It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate--once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself. Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say ‘I love you’ out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans” (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass)
The relationship I developed with those five garden beds—and the people who helped me cultivate them--became the seed that has grown into the overwhelming passion and excitement that I have for sustainable agriculture today. For the past two years, I have worked as an Apprentice at the Forge Garden, Santa Clara University’s half-acre, certified organic garden. I have strengthened my skillset in seeding plants in the greenhouse, planting starter plants in the raised garden beds, building compost piles, and harvesting produce. Not only has working as a Forge Garden Apprentice taught me how to grow my own food, but it has also made me a more active community member, a better equipped leader and collaborator, a more conscious consumer, and more aware of what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle.
“People often ask me what one thing I would recommend to restore the relationship between land and people. My answer is almost always, ‘Plant a garden.’ It’s good for the health of the earth and it’s good for the health of people. A garden is a nursery for nurturing connection, the soil for cultivation of practical reverence. And its power goes far beyond the garden gate--once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself. Something essential happens in a vegetable garden. It’s a place where if you can’t say ‘I love you’ out loud, you can say it in seeds. And the land will reciprocate, in beans” (Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass)
The relationship I developed with those five garden beds—and the people who helped me cultivate them--became the seed that has grown into the overwhelming passion and excitement that I have for sustainable agriculture today. For the past two years, I have worked as an Apprentice at the Forge Garden, Santa Clara University’s half-acre, certified organic garden. I have strengthened my skillset in seeding plants in the greenhouse, planting starter plants in the raised garden beds, building compost piles, and harvesting produce. Not only has working as a Forge Garden Apprentice taught me how to grow my own food, but it has also made me a more active community member, a better equipped leader and collaborator, a more conscious consumer, and more aware of what it means to live a sustainable lifestyle.
Concerning social justice, the Forge Garden supports marginalized and impoverished community members through its weekly, donation-based farm stand and through its donations to local food-banks and shelters. However, I am driven to learn even more about how sustainable agriculture can be used as a tool so address social injustices and cultivate agency in marginalized or impoverished communities across the world. No one should ever be without access to food, especially when the land that we live on provides all the resources required for crop production. By cultivating relationships of reciprocity between people and the land on which they live, I believe it is possible to address food injustice and insecurity on a global scale.
It is my belief in the power of sustainable agriculture that has lead to my support of the mission of Development in Gardening (DIG). I am grateful for the opportunity to support, work with, and learn from a social enterprise that is tapping into the potentials of sustainable agriculture to "grow health, wealth, and a sense of belonging" in ultra-vulnerable communities in the world.
It is my belief in the power of sustainable agriculture that has lead to my support of the mission of Development in Gardening (DIG). I am grateful for the opportunity to support, work with, and learn from a social enterprise that is tapping into the potentials of sustainable agriculture to "grow health, wealth, and a sense of belonging" in ultra-vulnerable communities in the world.
An Adventurer: Empowered By Mother Earth
The summer before my first-year of high school, I worked as a Junior Ranger for the Open Space and Mountain Parks of the City of Boulder to maintain hiking trails in Boulder. Similar to my experience in my high school’s garden, through the tireless work sloping trails with a pickaxe and installing log and rock staircases, I not only gained a greater appreciation and excitement for well-constructed hiking trails, but also for the complexities of ecosystems and the services that forests and wilderness areas provide. I ended that first summer as a Junior Ranger inspired to further explore the natural world; I cashed my first paychecks and bought the pack I would need to go on my first backpacking trip with my dad. The first several
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father-daughter trips were overnight trips on trails close to home. Next came a seven-day, sixty-mile trip through the Wind River Range in Wyoming. After that, a three-day, fifty-mile trip through the Grand Tetons. Sprinkled in between were various camping and hiking trips in Arches National Park in Utah and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado.
As the story goes, I left my adventure buddy behind when I went to college and found a new community of outdoor enthusiasts. For the past year, I have worked as a leader for the university’s outdoor club, Into the Wild. Through the club, I have led countless day hikes and overnight backpacking and camping trips for students at the university. After embarking on years of outdoor trips with my family and friends, the next big step in my ‘career’ as a backpacker seemed to be my first solo trip. A long-weekend was on the horizon and I was craving time off-campus. I extended the invitation for an overnight backpacking trip to countless friends and no one showed interest. I had already planned the trip, bought the food, and packed my backpack to the brim—the trip was happening regardless of whether or not I had any companions. I drove down to Big Sur, California, hiked 25 miles and summited a 5,000-foot peak in the course of two days. Throughout the last mile of the hike to the car, I had to audibly encourage my mind and my body to keep hiking—“come on Julia…you got this…okay body…you can do it…just a little further.” Despite the physical pain I experienced in that last mile, I felt emotionally and psychologically stronger than ever. I did it. By myself. Using everything I had previously learned from my outdoor companions. I was able to do it by myself. And I succeeded!
For me, backpacking is an act of self-empowerment. Through the trips I have embarked on, I have learned that I am both physically and mentally capable of summiting towering peaks, trudging through twenty-mile days on the trails, and withstanding the harsh elements that leave me soaking wet or shivering in my sleeping bag at night. Overcoming these challenges in the backcountry has guided me in overcoming the challenges that I face in the front-country; my experience in the backcountry has influenced my grit, patience, and hard-work ethic when addressing problems in the workplace, the classroom, or the household.
Because I have carried the empowerment that I have received from my strong relationship with the natural world into all aspects of my life, I want other women to gain a similar sense of empowerment from the Earth. In addition to their work in sustainable agriculture, I am excited to work as a fellow for DIG because the enterprise serves to cultivate sustainable relationships between women and their land so that they can experience a similar sense of empowerment from the Earth.
For me, backpacking is an act of self-empowerment. Through the trips I have embarked on, I have learned that I am both physically and mentally capable of summiting towering peaks, trudging through twenty-mile days on the trails, and withstanding the harsh elements that leave me soaking wet or shivering in my sleeping bag at night. Overcoming these challenges in the backcountry has guided me in overcoming the challenges that I face in the front-country; my experience in the backcountry has influenced my grit, patience, and hard-work ethic when addressing problems in the workplace, the classroom, or the household.
Because I have carried the empowerment that I have received from my strong relationship with the natural world into all aspects of my life, I want other women to gain a similar sense of empowerment from the Earth. In addition to their work in sustainable agriculture, I am excited to work as a fellow for DIG because the enterprise serves to cultivate sustainable relationships between women and their land so that they can experience a similar sense of empowerment from the Earth.
A Singer: Creating Sound Solutions
The culture of my family is founded in music. My grandfather was a professional jazz drummer in New York City and played for famous artists like Billy Holiday and Nat King Cole. My mom studied Musical Theater in college and my uncle currently works as a professional musician in NYC. Growing up, I spent my summers in NYC singing with my sister in the cramped living room of my grandparent’s apartment. My sister and I—no older than eleven--sang Sam Cooke and Ella Fitzgerald from the same pullout couch we slept on at night, while my uncle played guitar from the dining room table and my grandpa played the ‘drums’ on the handlebars of his wheelchair. We stayed up creating our own renditions of jazz standards late into the night until my mom had to beg my Uncle to leave as she wheeled my grandpa back into his room. I loved my family and the music we created together.
I continued singing in choirs in middle and high school and became more of a musical creator in the latter half of my high school experience. I collaborated to perform with jazz musicians at local performance venues, organized several performances at local cafes with friends, and began recording covers and mashups of songs with a fellow musician at my high school.
I continued singing in choirs in middle and high school and became more of a musical creator in the latter half of my high school experience. I collaborated to perform with jazz musicians at local performance venues, organized several performances at local cafes with friends, and began recording covers and mashups of songs with a fellow musician at my high school.
Because I haven’t pursued any opportunities in music at the university, many of my close peers don’t know that music and singing make up a large part of my identity. Even though I do not sing as often anymore, I continue to use the skills I learned as a singer and performer; I know how to collaborate well with other team members, perform publicly in front of large audiences, be creative, expressive and conversational, and I am willing to be vulnerable in front of others. All of these skills that I developed as a singer will continue to benefit me as a problem-solver and collaborator in the classroom and the workplace. My interest in agriculture for social justice, rather than agriculture solely for food production, is founded in my desire to collaborate and communicate with others to create solutions that address problems within marginalized or impoverished communities--something that DIG accomplishes through its mission, values and actions.