Birmingham Magazine April 2018 Issue

It’s all a part of a bigger picture that starts
and ends with sustainability. Instructors get
connected with the community they work in;
students, teachers, and parents all buy in; and
the cycle continues.
BRANCHING OUT
The way the cycle has continued most
recently is with an internship program at
Woodlawn High School, which started in
2016. The program employs six to seven
juniors and seniors who receive course credit,
a weekly salary, and a $1,000 scholarship for
future studies upon graduation. The 2.5-acre
teaching farm, complete with a 1,500-squarefoot
greenhouse, debuted in spring of 2016,
and like most of Jones Valley’s projects, it
was students who envisioned, planned, and
helped execute the project.
One of those students, Mohamad Jalloh
(a 2015 Woodlawn graduate), has now been
working with Jones Valley in one way or
another since 2012, when the organization
made a presentation to his 10th grade class
proposing that Woodlawn’s sports practice
field be transformed into a farm.
“At the time it was the practice field for
football, baseball, and soccer,” Jalloh says. “I
played football, baseball, and soccer, and I
was in the government of the school, so for
me, the site was my own. They wanted to
have the input of every aspect of the students.
For me, I knew it was going to be a challenge,
but it also was an excitement.”
Jalloh moved to Woodlawn from Guinea
in 2011, and farming, he says, wasn’t foreign
to him. “It was like a piece of me coming
back,” he says.
Over the next couple years, Jalloh and a
small group of students worked with Jones
Valley to develop plans for an urban farm
and internship program. They made multiple
presentations to the school—teachers,
students, principals—and took their ideas
back to the Jones Valley staff to create the
perfect addition to the school. Though
the process was long, Jalloh says it was
well worth it for the success of the end
product, as well as the lessons learned
along the way.
“It’s a great accomplishment to be able
to drive by and say, ‘I helped get that up’. It’s
something I can rely back on in life,” Jalloh says.
“This all happened in the period of three years,
so it’s a lesson within itself. You realize your
goals don’t happen instantly. You plan them,
and you have to pursue them step by step.”
After graduating, Jones Valley hired
Jalloh as what he calls a “floating agent” to
help among the farm sites. By the end of
the summer, Woodlawn hired its first class
of interns and Jalloh was stationed there to
facilitate; later he was hired full-time as the
farm manager. Now, when he’s not in class
earning a degree in electrical engineering
at Lawson State, Jalloh can be found at the
farm, leading and inspiring the next group of
student farmers.
“I always try to talk to the students and
make them understand the moral behind
what we do,” he says. “It’s not just farming.
We did crop planting last month, so in
two months, we’ll see plants, and in five,
we’ll start harvesting. You always have to be
patient, and even when you’re waiting, you
have to work.”
Jalloh’s legacy is being upheld in a new class
of farming students, who already have told
him that they want his position if he leaves.
There’s Milo, a freshman who comes to the
farm every day—no doubt a future intern—
and there’s Jerrick Hamilton, a second-year
intern who has a special connection to the
program through Woodlawn’s program
director and environmental science teacher,
Scotty Feltman.
“I’ve known Mr. Feltman since I was in
5th grade [at Avondale Elementary where
Feltman used to teach] so he kind of brought
me out here,” Hamilton says. “I have a love
for labor, and I enjoy learning. I’m like
a sponge, so the opportunity came and I
took it.”
As an intern, Hamilton reports to the farm
every day after school and works until 5 or
5:30 p.m., weeding, transplanting, sowing
seeds, flipping compost piles, tilling the soil,
and doing his personal favorite job: making
compost. But he says his real favorite part of
his job is the people he works with through
the Jones Valley organization.
“I really feel as if the people of the program
have your best interest at heart and are willing
to do whatever it takes to better you,” he
says. “When I graduate, I want to major in
agriculture just because of Jones Valley.”
The enthusiasm for and knowledge of
farming and natural processes that Hamilton
now has is exactly what Feltman hopes to give
to all his students, interns or not.
“For me to come out here and pull crops
out of the ground and show them tiny
bacteria that're growing on the roots is
amazing,” Feltman says. “So they can actually
see these things instead of hearing about
them or watching them.”
IN FULL BLOOM
The tactical farming skills that Hamilton and
his fellow interns have learned are just the tip
of the iceberg when it comes to what every
student in the Jones Valley system stands to
gain. They’re also learning about teamwork,
professional development, leadership, problem
solving, critical thinking, self-confidence,
patience, hard work, and public speaking. The
success stories from Year One’s class of interns
serve as proof.
One former student is studying culinary
arts at Lawson State and has launched her own
cupcake business, an obvious translation of
her exposure to cooking and running a small
business through Jones Valley’s student-run
farmers markets. Another graduate is working
full time with a local chef and still comes back
to volunteer at the farm. Then there’s Jalloh
“It's a great accomplishment
to be able to drive by [the
farm] and say, I helped get
that up.'"
- MOHAMAD JALLOH
JVTF FARM MANAGER
Part of Jones Valley's mission is to expose schoolaged
students, from kingergarten through 12th grade,
to different types of fruits and vegetables, as well as
other plant species.
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