“ROOTS CONTINUES TO GROW” ARTICLE
REPRINTED FROM THE WINTER 2016 ISSUE
OF MCDONOGH MAGAZINE
McDONOGH
3
>>>
BY MEREDITH BOWER, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
Roots Farm has come a long way since the seeds for a
communal garden were first planted in 2006. At that
time, focus groups comprised of alumni, faculty, staff,
and parents were enthusiastic about bringing farming
back to McDonogh. The consensus was that “the
things we can do in the future are things we did in the
past,” referring to the school’s founding as a farm
school for boys.
Roots Continues to GrowAs word about the garden spread, so did excitement
for the project. In one very productive meeting in
2008, the name “Roots” was proposed, a mission
was agreed upon, and a location was chosen. With
seed money from the McDonogh Parents
Association, the initial plans to plant a simple acre of
potatoes at the end of Barnhill Road on the edge of
campus quickly sprouted, and tomatoes and
pumpkins were added to the list along with space for
a half-acre of individual garden plots.
3>>>
Fourth grader Ria Sood and Sharon Hood harvest sunflowers with plans to use the seeds in homemade bird feeders.
>>>Roots Continues to Grow
and shared with local food banks. Soon after students
returned to school in the fall of 2009, they piled onto
hay wagons for a trip to the garden for McDonogh’s
first Harvest Day. Lower schoolers picked pumpkins
that had grown so large the children could barely lift
them, while middle schoolers weeded the potato patch
in preparation for the crop to be plowed to the surface.
Additionally, a few hundred tomatoes were plucked
from the vines and sent straight to the dining hall.
In Roots’ first year, it is estimated that it yielded 4,000
pounds of potatoes, 1,000 pounds of tomatoes, and
more than 200 handsome pumpkins.
Over the past six years, Roots has evolved from a
garden to a two-acre farm with a greater variety of
crops. In 2015, Roots yielded roughly 7,000 pounds of
produce, 500 traditional pumpkins, and 300 munchkin
pumpkins. The farm’s growth also includes inviting
learning spaces planted among the crops. The most
recent addition is a 3,072 square foot multi-purpose
barn, which is being used in countless ways by teachers.
“Roots is not only a homage to our first days as a farm
school, it is a vibrant laboratory where students from
all divisions go to learn,” says Kevin Costa, Director of
the Academic Program. “Teachers increasingly see
opportunities to take ideas, once limited to the
classroom, and have them come alive in the garden,
barn, and beehives. In this way, students learn through
experience. This is just one facet of what makes Roots
such a special feature of McDonogh’s campus. It also
exemplifies what we mean by place-based learning—
what other school could do what we do?”
In March 2009, the fertile land was plowed and
tilled, and volunteers of all ages collected the first
harvest: rocks.
Meanwhile, in classrooms across campus, seedlings
were popping out of peat pots. By the end of the
school year, first and fifth graders had planted
tomato and pumpkin seedlings and volunteers had
planted seed potatoes. Over the summer, the crops
were tended and the tomato plants became heavy
with fruit that was used by Sage Dining Services “ R O OT S I S N OT O N LY A N H O M AG E TO O U R
F I R S T DAY S A S A FA R M S C H O O L , I T I S A
V I B R A N T L A B O R ATO R Y W H E R E S T U D E N T S
F R O M A L L D I V I S I O N S G O TO L E A R N .”
— K E V I N CO S TA
4
>>>
Not YourTypical FarmersOn the surface, Sharon Hood and Kirk Robertson ’98
could not be more different. She arrives at Roots Farm
wearing a dress and chunky heels, which she promptly
ditches for colorful rain boots. After tying on a vintage-
style apron, she is ready to pull weeds and pick
tomatoes. He shows up in sensible overalls, work boots,
and a John Deere hat ready to plow the land and
prepare it for planting.
She grew up in a Baltimore City row house with an
abundant but postage stamp-sized garden tended by
her mother. She dreamed of owning a cow, living on a
farm, and teaching. He grew up on a horse farm in
Carroll County, studied agriculture at Virginia Tech, and
then pursued his dream of running his own family farm
and teaching school.
Together they are why Roots Farm is flourishing. As a
result of their deep-seated passion, more students are
learning at Roots, more crops are being cultivated, and
more people are benefitting from the bounty.
Hood and Robertson’s dreams of teaching brought
them to McDonogh. She is a Lower School science
teacher, and he teaches fifth grade science. When
Roots began as a garden in 2009, the two were ready
to get their hands dirty. With his experience, Robertson
was tapped to manage the farm work. And when the
first director of Roots, Joanna Bratton, moved away,
Hood stepped in. Almost immediately, Hood and
Robertson fell into a natural division of labor that not
only suits their personalities, but also suits the needs of
the operation.
Robertson is responsible for the functional side of the
farm, primarily working with machinery and supplies.
Give him a chore and he will get it done. Hood is
responsible for the day-to-day operations from
managing the budget to engaging students, teachers,
parents, and alumni. She is also the partner with the
vision, which ultimately makes Roots a wondrous
place to learn, discover, and experience.
The two teacher/farmers feel their partnership is
much like a sibling relationship. They are open and
honest and look to each other for direction. And while
their approaches are quite different, there is mutual
respect for what each contributes to the operation.
“I like to reach out to people and pull them into the
farm, and he likes to get his work done. It works really
well,” says Hood. Robertson teases Hood by saying she
has “decorated” the farm with park-like pathways,
whimsical signs, benches, and nooks and crannies. He
appreciates it, noting, “I know the value in it, and it has
to be done. My focus is the plants. In terms of real
farming conditions you wouldn’t have time for what
she does, and you also wouldn’t have funding.”
There is no question that the window dressing and the
events planned by Hood make Roots appealing to
students, families, and donors. Last summer, as a result
of a donation from former trustee Vernon Wright ’60,
Hood’s dream of having a barn at Roots for year-round
learning was realized. In September, the barn was the
centerpiece of the McDonogh Parents Association-
sponsored back-to-school “Honey of a Jam Fest.”
Families came out to the farm to learn about the crops
and the role of honeybees, pick pumpkins, and try their
hand at cider pressing. Once interest in Roots is
sparked at events such as this, students and their
families return to help with the chores that result in the
bounty donated to the hungry.
5>>>
The combination of the practical and the engaging is
why Roots continues to grow. “We are blessed with an
incredible gift and opportunity with the land,” says
Robertson gazing over the farm from the crops to the
barn. “We built this. We grew this. And now, more and
more people are saying, ‘we think what you are doing
is important.’”
Connecting Curriculum to RootsEach June after school lets out for the summer, the
incoming kindergarten class and their parents are
invited to Roots to plant pumpkin seeds. Kneeling in
the dirt as they poke their little fingers into the soil,
they get to know their new teachers and future
classmates. Four months later when they return to the
farm to harvest their crop, the students are amazed to
see vines dotted with orange pumpkins. They take
them back to their classrooms to make pies and bread,
which are then shared with the bus drivers or served
on Grandparents’ Day.
“The process contains countless lessons on growing and
giving that they will use throughout their lives; it’s unique,”
says Robertson of the activity planned and implemented
by Hood. “Our society is so far removed from
understanding where food comes from. What Sharon
does with pumpkins is one of the greatest things we do.”
From prekindergarten through twelfth grade, teachers
are using the farm for all kinds of hands-on lessons.
The unique opportunity to integrate Roots into the
McDonogh curriculum is why, in 2013, the Edward E.
Ford Foundation awarded McDonogh a $50,000
matching grant to further curriculum development.
They saw the value of bringing the humanities and
science to life in a tangible outdoor classroom where
students also learn to be good stewards of the earth
and give back to the community in meaningful ways.
“ R O OT S I S N OT T H E S O L E F O C U S O F A N Y PA R T I C U L A R C L A S S O R CO U R S E. I T ’S M O R E L I K E A P L AC E W H E R E PA R T O F T H E S C I E N C E C U R R I C U LU M C A N B E P U R S U E D O R PA R T O F A N OT H E R
C L A S S C A N B E E N H A N C E D.” — C H R I S W H I T E ’66
English teacher Josh Waller ’02 addresses the Middle School faculty at their unconventional morning staff meeting in the barn at Roots.
>>
>
6
>>>
Additionally, the Class of 1966 has stepped in with a
campaign in honor of their 50th Reunion year. The
cleverly named effort, “Roots 66,” recognizes the
potential of Roots to affect the curriculum as well as to
give back to the community. Chris White ’66 shares the
enthusiasm cultivated at Roots with his classmates.
“This ain’t your grandfather’s (our) McDonogh
education,” White recently wrote to them. “While we
are primarily the products of the ‘students learn/
teachers talk’ model, today’s McDonogh students
spend a good deal of their academic life in project-
based learning.”
He continued, “Roots is not the sole focus of any
particular class or course. It’s more like a place where
part of the science curriculum can be pursued or part of
another class can be enhanced. As kids matriculate into
the higher grades, the Roots exposure comes with them.”
To help teachers understand how Roots can easily
become part of their lessons, Hood invited faculty to
the farm for a series of informal brainstorming sessions
called, “Connect with your Roots.” On a perfect autumn
afternoon, a handful of teachers gathered in the barn
where they sat on hay bales, sampled honey cake, and
enjoyed homemade salsa with chips. Although the
group came from different disciplines and divisions, it
didn’t take long for ideas to begin flowing. Since then,
many of the suggestions posted on the barn’s “wall of
ideas” have been nurtured and already incorporated
into lesson plans in a variety of subject areas. Lower
School Chinese teacher Fang Fang Ma took her
students to the farm to learn how to say the names of
the colors they saw in Mandarin, and Middle School
Language Arts teacher Kim Mitchell’s students found
inspiration in the farm as they wrote poetry. For years,
students in the Upper School English elective “In Good
Taste: The Literature of Food” have visited the beehives
and participated in the honey harvest, and next year,
Marilyn Boyle will incorporate the corn harvest into her
tenth grade lesson on the Industrial Revolution.
Jody Christophe, who teaches Middle School Spanish,
discovered Roots is ideal for cross-curricular lessons
and “doing good.” Christophe is using Roots to study
the lifecycle and the migration of the Monarch
butterfly, which travels annually from northern
Minnesota to Central Mexico. Knowing that the
butterflies are nourished by milkweed, Middle School
students plan to grow it near the farm with the hope of
attracting the Monarchs to McDonogh’s campus. In the
process of learning about the butterflies, in Spanish of
course, they will also learn about the region in Mexico
where they winter. And as a bonus, the students will
have a positive impact on the environment.
Student groups aren’t the only ones gravitating to
Roots. The Middle School faculty held an early morning
meeting in the barn, and a recent Lower School
professional day included a campus-wide scavenger
hunt that ended at the farm. There, the group relaxed
around a fire, drank hot chocolate, and recapped what
had transpired during the day.
“People want to have meetings here,” says Hood. “The
barn has made the difference. It’s like our home.”
With the recent addition of the barn, Roots has
become a place teachers can use in almost any
weather condition. On a cold November day with rain
beating down on the barn’s tin roof, Hood overheard a
fourth grader exclaim, “It is so much fun to be out here
Fourth grader Dana Thompson takes her turn using the apple press as her classmates watch.
>>>
7>>>
in the rain. This is the coolest.” Hood recalls, “All I
could say is ‘wow.’ With so much high tech in their
world, this is high touch. In terms of contrast, it
doesn’t get any better than Roots.”
Grounded in the Greater GoodRoots also provides an opportunity to teach children
of all ages about being good stewards of the earth
and to practice John McDonogh’s tenet to “do the
greatest possible amount of good.” At Roots,
volunteering and tending the crops aren’t perceived
as chores when the end result is growing food to
enjoy or to donate to people in need.
Hood and Robertson have seen the interest in Roots
blossom over the years. “You can just watch the kids
become enamored. They take pride in the work
knowing, for example, that the potatoes they are
digging will be used by Sage or donated to a food
bank,” says Robertson. “For most kids, planting and
harvesting is ‘foreign,’ and they want to know when
they can go back.”
In addition to fifth graders who plant and harvest
potatoes and kindergartners who are responsible for
the pumpkin crop, Roots relies on upper schoolers for
much of the heavy lifting. In 2015, some 35 students
earned more than 300 community service hours at
Roots. Additionally, the girls’ and boys’ lacrosse teams
as well as the track teams came out in force to clean
up the land and prepare it for spring planting.
“ S E R V I C E I S T H E H E A R T O F R O OT S , A N D P E O P L E A R E T H E H E A R T O F T H E FA R M .”
— S H A R O N H O O D
Juniors Kasey Gibbons, Catie May, and Margaret Donovan discover a dewey spider web while volunteering at Roots.
>>>
8
>>>
“Service is the heart of Roots, and people are the heart of
the farm,” says Hood. “We can’t do it without them. It’s
amazing how much people want to do and get involved.
They are drawn to the farm; it’s no longer a push.”
In addition to student, faculty, and alumni volunteers,
Roots also benefits from countless volunteer hours from
members of the McDonogh Parents Association,
including several with expertise in key areas. Hood cites
Courtney Gonzalez, the mother of four McDonogh
students, as an example. “She is a worker bee,” Hood
laughingly says since Gonzalez, her husband, Darryl, and
her father, Mac McClelland, who are beekeepers, do
much of the work with McDonogh’s hives. In addition to
harvesting honey and teaching students about the
important role of bees in food production, she helps out
in numerous other ways. “She just asks me what needs
to be done and then does it,” says Hood.
McDonogh’s Grounds and Maintenance crews are also
willing to pitch in at Roots. They, too, feel the pull and
realize the impact the farm is having on the school and
beyond. They take pride in doing whatever is needed, from
building fencing to landscaping, and generally keeping
things tidy.
Since its founding, Roots has relied on the expertise of
other farmers when it comes to the basics of agricul-
ture. Last winter, when considering a crop that would
keep the bees busy pollinating, Hood consulted with
Chip Mace of neighboring Foxleigh Farms. He recom-
mended that buckwheat be planted between the
community boxes and the pumpkins, not only for the
bees but also as a cover crop to condition the soil.
Weeks later, Mace arrived at Roots with the necessary
equipment to plant the buckwheat and prepare the
land for the other crops being planted by the students.
Using repurposed cedar, Director of Maintenance Keith Lambert begins building a multi-purpose table for the barn.
>>>
9>>>
Former parent Rick Bernstein, owner of First Fruit
Farms, a ministry devoted to growing food for the
hungry, generously offers advice and equipment to
maintain the land. His large-scale operation has also
served as a model for Roots to grow crops to be
donated to the Maryland Food Bank. “They all are
critical resources,” says Hood of her mentors.
“We have the opportunity to do so much good—more
good than we are already doing,” says Hood. “There is
so much more food to be grown, to be donated, and to
be used right here.” Robertson sums up how Roots and
the community work together, noting, “We are good at
cultivating crops, and along the way we have been
cultivating community and character.”
The Purpose of RepurposingEven with its park-like setting and brand new barn,
Roots exudes a well-worn, homey feel. Inside the barn
are deep sinks for washing vegetables, a bulletin board
for pinning up notes, sturdy shelving, a pile of quilts, and
a smattering of kitchen-style chairs. Purposely, nothing
is new. Hood, with her unique sense of style, has
outfitted the barn with things that were headed for the
landfill. “The barn needs to be a symbol and message,”
Hood explains. “It’s not about going out and buying new
shiny things. It’s about taking things we have here on
earth and recycling, reusing, and repurposing.”
Standing inside the barn, she points to the sinks that
came from Second Chance, a Baltimore-based salvage
operation, noting they will be used to wash produce
that will be used by Sage and Linwoods Restaurant.
With the help of Keith Lambert, Director of Mainte-
nance, doors from a chicken coop were affixed to a
wall and now hold notes clipped on with clothes pins,
large slate chalkboards from remodeled classrooms
have been framed and will be attached to a wall for les-
sons, and a new farm table is being built using leftover
cedar from another project.
The shelves along the wall next to the sliding barn door
came from the old science classrooms in Allan Building,
but they look like they belong in the barn. The formerly
polished dark wood is now a chalky, grass green with
scratches and nicks thanks to a “distressing” project
completed by the third and fourth grade “Roots
Squad,” an activity class that meets regularly at Roots
and does whatever needs to be done.
“Why do we want to make it look old?” the kids often
wonder. Hood tells them, “Distressing and changing is
art. Instead of going out and buying something new
that doesn’t match the feel of the farm, we are chang-
ing what we have. Rather than throwing it away, we
give it a new life.”
She concludes, “For the ‘get and toss’ generation,
repurposing teaches that you can find something old
and make it the coolest piece you’ve ever had. It’s a
different mindset. That’s what the farm is all about.”
“ F O R T H E ‘G E T A N D TO S S’ G E N E R AT I O N , R E P U R P O S I N G T E AC H E S T H AT YO U C A N F I N D S O M E T H I N G O L D A N D M A K E I T T H E CO O L E S T P I E C E YO U’ V E E V E R H A D.” — S H A R O N H O O D
Third graders Stella Hammond and Allison Kelly distress a cast-off bookshelf that is now being used in the barn.>
>>
10
>>>
Farm-to-Table(s)Anyone who has ever enjoyed a tomato fresh from the
vine will understand why the crop grown at Roots is
like gold. Rich with flavor and goodness, they are
emblematic of why the “farm-to-table” movement is so
popular. “The sooner you can eat something that is
freshly picked, the more flavorful and nutritious it is. It’s
not like a wine that gets better with age,” explains
Linwoods Restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine Jay Rohlfing,
who buys tomatoes and other fresh produce from
Roots. “You can’t beat naturally grown. It’s every chef’s
dream to get beautiful produce from as close as a
quarter mile away.”
The produce grown at Roots not only ends up on the
plates at one of Baltimore’s finest restaurants, it is also
served in McDonogh’s dining halls and in the kitchens
of people in need whose meals are provided by the
Maryland Food Bank. The distribution of the produce
to the three distinct outlets is at the heart of Roots’
mission to “unite our community through the
cultivation of the earth and stewardship of the land.”
Since the beginning, Roots has been donating produce
to the Maryland Food Bank. This past year, it is
estimated that 1,300 pounds of tomatoes, potatoes,
squash, and green beans went to the non-profit
through its Farm to Food Bank program. Butch
Langenfelder, the organization’s food sourcing
manager, is thrilled to receive donations from Roots
and other local farms, saying, “Every family needs
produce; it’s up there with protein in terms of
nutritional value.”
Roots is one of the smaller farms participating in the
Farm to Food Bank program, but the contributions are
considered big. In addition to offsetting the need for
the organization to purchase fresh produce for its
clients, there is great value for the students who help
grow it. Understanding where food comes from is also
important to Linwoods’ Chef Rohlfing. Not only does
he purchase produce from Roots, but he also maintains
a plot at the farm where he grows lettuces and herbs
for the restaurant. He occasionally brings younger
chefs to the farm to teach them about where the food
is grown. “When they see a tomato they know was
grown at Roots, they’ll treat it with more respect than
one imported from California or Mexico. They have
more respect for the food in general because they see
what went into growing it and where it came from.”
Linwoods began buying Roots’ tomatoes and adding
them to summer salads two years ago. This past
summer, the restaurant’s tomatoes came exclusively
from McDonogh, appearing in salads, sandwiches, and
sauces alongside Roots’ green beans, yellow squash,
and basil. The money from the sale of the fresh
produce to Linwoods is plowed back into the farm and
used to buy seeds for the following season.
Sage Dining, McDonogh’s food services provider, also
maintains a plot at Roots for growing fresh herbs. But
herbs are just a fraction of what goes from the farm on
11>>>
one side of campus to the dining hall tables on the
other side. During the growing season, Roots
provides Sage with a quarter of its potato needs, and
last summer it more than filled the kitchen’s zucchini
and squash needs. “We cooked it every way possible,”
says Derald Higgins, McDonogh’s Catering Manager.
“We thought people would be sick of it, but it was so
flavorful that people started asking for it!” Mashaye
Barr, Assistant Food Service Director agrees: “It was
so delicious, you could taste the sun.”
The tomatoes that became a sauce sparked a similar
reaction, not solely because they are sun-kissed, but
also because they are planted with basil as a
companion crop. At Roots, foods that taste great
together are grown together.
In the last few years, Sage has begun to rely on Roots
for everything from produce and herbs to sunflowers,
pumpkins and corn stalks for table decorations. Their
relationship with Roots is such that they can harvest
anything they need. “Being able to access food from
the farm is the best,” Higgins exclaims. “And it saves a
lot of money.”
As the farm has evolved, so has the process of
determining what to plant. Sage’s Barr and Chef
Rohlfing of Linwoods are both looking forward to the
next growing season when, in addition to the lush
tomatoes and squash, the produce they have
requested to be planted at Roots begins to sprout.
“Sharon [Hood] is all about producing products for us
to utilize,” says Barr. “That’s farm-to-table.”
“ YO U C A N’ T B E AT N AT U R A L LY G R O W N . I T ’S E V E R Y C H E F ’S D R E A M TO G E T B E AU T I F U L P R O D U C E F R O M A S C LO S E A S A Q UA R T E R M I L E AWAY.”
— J AY R O H L F I N G , C H E F D E C U I S I N E , L I N W O O D S R E S TAU R A N T
>>>
Top Related