BY ALICIA GREEN | While lemonade and cookie stands are starting to pop up in the suburbs and on city sidewalks, PS11 is helping some of its students transform a conventional children’s business model into a nutritious endeavor and a valuable learning experience.
Standing under a tent, behind two tables of fruits, vegetables and other organic goods, a new crop of third graders opened the fifth week of PS11’s Farm Market on the morning of July 8.
“It feels good,” said third grader Finn about manning the market for the first time.
“Every third grader gets involved with the Farm Market,” said Esilida Buxbaum, who started helping with the market when her grandson was a third grader four years ago. “When school starts, then we switch since we have several third grades, and we can’t have 50 kids out here. We have one class each time, every Wednesday.”
At the end of the school year, the current group of third graders visited the Farm Market, where the outgoing group explained what they were going to have to do once they took over it.
With eagerness in their eyes on their first day in charge, the youngsters waited for customers to arrive. And even though weather conditions weren’t the greatest, and summers are usually the slowest for the market, a modest but steady stream of customers arrived in search of delicious and healthy produce.
One customer asked them about the different types of products they had. He decided he wanted bake a blueberry pie so he asked, “Do you think three [packs] would make a pie?”
He used the opportunity to do a little math with the third graders, asking them how much it would cost altogether if he bought the three sets of $4 blueberries. After doing some mental math, one student told him $12.
In the end, he purchased the blueberries along with a few other products including summer squash, spinach, cabbage and scallions, said third grader Micha.
After a couple of minutes, a few more customers arrived to purchase cherries, summer squash, and honey. One female customer could be overheard saying to the children, “You guys are busy little bees.”
“For the students, it was amazing,” said Deborah Osborne, director of the after-school and summer camp program at PS11. “Even though we didn’t have a lot of sales, how excited were they whenever they did sell something to someone?”
Osborne noted that being able to add up the produce, putting it in bags, being in charge of money and sharing information about a topic they’re well-informed about is “really exciting” for the students.
When Chelsea Now inquired about the range of products for sale, two third graders began pointing them out with ease. They even mentioned a product that most adults, according to Osborne, don’t really know about: kohlrabi, a vegetable with a similar taste and texture to broccoli and cabbage.
“We do a little mini lesson the day before, and just talk to them about what this is, why we do it, the kinds of foods that we have,” Osborne said. “We taste a lot of things so they have a sense of what things are.”
Micah said, “I’ve learned that the food is really healthy for your body and it has no chemicals. I tried them yesterday and they taste really good.”
While the purpose of the market is to teach students about healthy foods, it is also to “help them with their math,” Bauxbaum said. This happens in the form of managing money as well as learning about ounces and pounds through the use of a weighing scale.
“The difference between now and next June when they run their final market is huge,” Osborne said. “They’ll be able to speak about it more. Making change and calculating costs will be a snap.”
When asked why she liked working at the market, Micah said, “The food is local, organic and seasonal, and it’s really fresh.” Finn, on the other hand, said he likes “selling stuff.”
In September, the students will visit Stoneledge Farm, the organic farm in South Cairo, New York that supplies the market’s produce.
“One of the things that happens as kids do this is they start to be more adventurous in their food choices,” Osborne said. “Getting kids to eat new things is really important for families. Parents love that their kids are learning about healthy foods.”
The Farm Market runs every Wednesday (rain or shine), 8–10 a.m., through late November at PS11 (320 W. 21st St. btw. Eighth & Ninth Aves.). For more info, visit ps11chelsea.org/ps11-farm-market.
