This fall, the first 50 FoodCorps service members fanned out to take their posts in locations across the nation. The program — which places young leaders in limited-resource communities for a year to deliver nutrition education, build and tend school gardens, and work on bringing local food into public school cafeterias — is up against formidable odds.

In the past 30 years the percentage of overweight children has tripled and one in four young adults are not healthy enough to be eligible for military service. These statistics are only a portion of a larger more complicated picture, one where children in Arizona have a 22 percent chance of being obese, and where the average elementary school student receives just less than 3.5 hours of nutrition education per year.

Under the guidance of Debra Eschmeyer, formerly of the National Farm to School Network, King Corn‘s director Curt Ellis, and Cecily Upton, formerly of Slow Food USA, the first FoodCorps participants are already making changes in their communities. We asked three of them about their lives, their work and the road ahead.

Rachel Spencer Photo: Whitney Kidder

Stationed at: Arkansas Delta Garden Study and Marshall High School in Little Rock, Ark.
Home Town: Fayetteville, Ga.
Age: 21

Q. Tell us about the path that brought you to FoodCorps.

A. My family members are dairy farmers, and my dad’s a hunter, so I’ve always known where food comes from, but I didn’t realize that my closeness to agriculture was so rare and special. I never thought I would have anything to do with farming. Then in college I started studying the environment and sustainability and that’s really what made it click. I studied antibiotics and agricultural production and learned that around 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the U.S. are fed to animals for things like growth promotion — and then there are problems with antibiotic resistance. That was my food connection.

It was then that I thought, “Food connects everything.” Studying food and food issues allows you to explore policy and public health, science and education … it touches everything and everyone.

Q. What does an average day look like for you?

A. My day starts around seven in the morning, when I get to Marshall High School. I walk through the garden, watch the sunrise over the Ozarks, check on the chickens, and set out tools for the day’s classes. Then the middle school students arrive, and we learn about science, food, and health in our outdoor garden classroom.

We also make recipes with the food we harvest. On tasting days, you can find me running around the school balancing a binder with my lesson notes in one hand and a food processor in the other. Once the first bell rings, the day is a whirlwind of teaching, gardening, and cooking.

Q. What makes all this hard work worthwhile?

A. Cooking with kids and watching them try new foods that they never thought they would. We made pesto for our very first lesson and of course our kids are pretty familiar with basil, but I think out of over 200 students, only about three kids raised their hands to say they’d had pesto.

There’s something about being able to make that memory with my students. Since that first day, I’ve had something like 14 different students tell me that they’ve made pesto at home with their family and that they love it. I’ve had students come up to me and ask, “Do you have any more pesto?”

Q. What’s next for you?

A. My future was a hard question before FoodCorps, but this experience is really opening my eyes to all the options out these. It’s like it takes all of your goals and life plans and reshuffles them. I have a lot of goals, but the main one it to continue the study of our food system and to make sure that children have access to healthy food and are knowledgeable about health and how to prepare that food.

The people I admire most often don’t have job titles that are easy to articulate; they are individuals who stitch together their lives by doing what they love and tirelessly working to help others. I think that the very fact that FoodCorps exists is encouragement to dream big.

Kristi Silva
Photo: Whitney Kidder Stationed at: University of New Mexico and Farm to Table in Santa Fe, N.M.
Home Town: Albuquerque, N.M.
Age: 31

Q. Tell us about the path that brought you to FoodCorps.

A. A lot of FoodCorps members grew up with farming families, but I didn’t. My mom was a single mom and she did the best she could. I was raised on fast food and it’s taken a long time for me to see how that affects, not just me, but my community. So it’s been a long road for me to really have my eyes opened and to see how important public health and epidemiology are. I’ve learned healthy food isn’t just a lifestyle — it’s a right.

I’ve received support in the form of scholarships (money from public and private institutions), my family, friends, mentors and advisors — and all of these resources were invested in my education. So I see my FoodCorps service as my responsibility to return an investment that was made in me, back to my community.

Q. What does an average day look like for you?

A. There is no such thing as an average day and that’s something I really love. In our small Farm to School office there are experts in areas ranging from policy and advocacy, to community outreach, to farming. We run a pretty busy schedule, with people streaming in and out of meetings all day, talking with farmers and engaging the community. I’ve spent time at the capitol building; I’ve done trainings with other FoodCorps members, spoken with senators, met with representatives.

I’ll be using my training in epidemiology to [map] the relationship between access to fresh food, poverty level, race, and obesity. We’ll be a mapping out those factors, and others, county by county, around the entire state. The [result] will be a tool, not only for researchers, but also for farmers who want to see existing routes between farms and schools or the location of existing school gardens.

There are so many different parts of the job; it’s almost like trying to keep several balloons under the water. You shove a few down and others pop up.

Every night I collapse into bed, and my mind races with lessons of the day. This project ties together all my academic training and professional experience, it’s almost like this puzzle piece that was missing that’s fallen into place.

Q. What makes all this hard work worthwhile?

A. There’s such a wide gap for the Latino and American Indian populations here. As a Latina who
grew up in that environment, I can really put faces to the numbers.

It’s one thing to learn about fancy models and frameworks in grad school, but actually applying these lessons in life to these populations and the problems at hand is another thing entirely. A long road of education has led me to a practical, tangible outcome. That’s absolutely empowering and invigorating.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. If the last month is any hint of the year, I expect to be challenged like never before.

Daniel Marbury
Photo: Whitney Kidder Stationed at: Michigan Land Use Institute in Traverse City, Mich.
Home Town: Alpharetta, Ga.
Age: 23

Q. Tell us about the path that brought you to FoodCorps.

A. I had a position with AmeriCorps Vista, working with the Alabama Center for Economic Development, mostly in areas of tourism and folk art in rural Alabama. I worked with a nonprofit in a small town called Thomaston, Ala., trying to coordinate with performers for their annual pepper jelly festival (a jelly [they make in the area] with bell peppers or jalapenos). I saw the whole thing as a celebration of local food and food culture.

It was really my first experience in a rural community; I came to really love the cultural elements and found a lot of that fading in the rural South. I heard about the continued loss of farmland, and acres moving away from farming use all around the nation.

And [all] this comes at the same time that a lot of people are really suffering economically, in terms of jobs going away, the loss of the paper mills that once supported the town and the eroding agricultural base. I realized the disconnect between the way things are headed and where I saw the great potential in agriculture as an economic core in these areas.

Q. What does an average day look like for you?

A. I don’t really have a typical day. This afternoon I’ll be meeting with a nutrition coordinator to talk about farm to school tie-ins for National Farm to School month (October). She does all the menu design for that district so we’d like to get as much fresh and local food on the menu as we can and also have some kind of district-wide event during National School Lunch Week, which is October 10-14.

Tomorrow, I’ll be going to Frankfort Elementary and shadowing the food service staff. The goal is to roll up my sleeves and get in the kitchen and cut veggies. I [hope to] get a sense of how the kitchen flows, and what it’s like to feed 300-500 kids in a 40-minute period.

I’ll also be observing how kids move through the lunch line and maybe set up a tasting booth in a strategic location to really get a captive audience of kids waiting in line. That way I can teach them about a vegetable, or do a taste test, or something with a prize.

For the most part, I’m just shooting from the hip and running on intuition but what’s so amazing is I’m talking with and meeting with local experts all the time. I’m trying to push them to move towards local food and also trying to take in their mentorship as much as I can.

But I also get to think up zany ideas. One example is I want to have at least a few vegetable orchestra performances. There’s a group called the Trans-Acoustic Orchestra — this Austrian group that does concerts using instruments made out of veggies. We’ll be making our own veggie instruments to play with the kids.

Q. What makes all this hard work worthwhile?

A. I think it really hit me on my first day in the school cafeteria with a table full of zucchinis. We had samples of a roasted zucchini recipe and I was doing basic veggie identification. I realized that when kids have freedom to engage with food experiences — where it’s not a requirement, where it’s a choice — they take a much more active role in their food decisions. I noticed that kids already had stories and experiences of their own. Even the second and third graders would come to me saying, “My mom’s zucchini are twice that size.”

Sometimes just trying things under different circumstances makes a huge difference. I feel like I’m this ambassador, or a link in the web between all these people who are connected through food but don’t always get to talk to each other.

Being able to share the stories of food — that’s one of the most rewarding parts of the job. We’re all working to improve it, but sharing stories and connecting the community around the same goals — that makes it feel so relevant.

Q. What’s next for you?

A. I’m not sure yet. I think that I’d like to go to grad school someday for food and sustainable agriculture, or [maybe] continue my terms of service.

Interviews have been condensed and edited for length.

Lisa Gross.

Inspired by what she calls the City of Apples, Gross has worked with delegations of tree stewards all around the city to transform Boston’s public spaces, as well as the social and environmental health of its residents. An artist with an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts, Gross runs an umbrella nonprofit called Hybrid Vigor Projects. She’s also the founder and head of Boston’s Urban Homesteaders’ League.

The Boston Tree Party launched April 10, 2011, with the planting of its first pair of apple trees. Gross spoke to us recently amidst her work to begin ramping up for the next planting season.

Q. What does the Boston Tree Party do?

A. Our motto is civic fruit, and we call for the planting of fruit trees in civic space. So we really see these trees — which are planted by communities on land that they are somehow connected to or control — as a focal point for community engagement.

The thing is, we’re not trying to get permission to just plant trees anywhere. We’re starting with communities who want to plan and care for these trees. We want to know who is going to take care of them, and how it’s going to be structured. We built a framework and work with [community] delegations to give them a planting kit and help them learn how to care for the trees.

The trees are only a year old, so they don’t have fruit yet. Once they start producing, we will be organizing workshops and events on how to use the apples, because there are so many fun, exciting things that you can do with them!

Q. What’s special about planting a fruit tree, versus, say, a vegetable patch?

A. These trees are also tools of environmental restoration. In our tree planting kits, we had soil amendments which were specific to fruit trees. We had compost, mycorrhizal root dip — which extends the trees’ ability to absorb nutrients by about tenfold — and wood chip mulch, which mimics the forest floor and helps to develop mycorrhizal fungi. So planting these trees — and in this way — also helps the health of the soil. The root systems also absorb rainwater runoff, and they’ll contribute to the tree canopy of the city and help to improve air quality.

Plus, you can plant fruit trees in areas where you couldn’t grow other kinds of vegetables — areas with medium levels of lead because the lead goes to the bark and leaves and not the fruit. And [trees] can  help to remediate the soil that way too.

Q. What prompted you to reference the Boston Tea Party?

A. You know, living in Boston you’re always surrounded by colonial history and colonial kitsch, and when I started to research the history of Boston, I discovered that the first apple orchard planted in the United States was actually planted on Beacon Hill by the European settler William Blackstone. Beacon Hill is this icon of Boston history and power, so just to think of that as an apple orchard was really beautiful. Also, the oldest named variety of apples to grow in the United States is the Roxbury Russet, which was developed in Boston in the 1630s. So you have this idea of Boston as the City of Apples.

I started going to farmers markets around Boston; I collected about 50 different varieties of apples and I did a tasting with a friend. It was just this whole world opening through this fruit that we so often take for granted. And then I discovered that there is this really interesting biology and ecology to apple trees in that they need to be planted in pairs to cross-pollinate. And I just thought that was such a beautiful image and metaphor.

The Boston Tea Party has become so widely relevant with the rise of the contemporary Tea Party and I was fascinated to learn that, in a way, [that event] was a performance. The dumping of the tea had a financial impact, but … it was also a dramatic, symbolic performance. So the Boston Tree Party is a kind of reference to both a celebratory party and the performance of it all.

Q. Did you have to educate the public and say, hey these trees are yours, it’s okay to eat the fruit?

A. As part of developing the project I met with everyone I could from a [now defunct] organization called Earth Works, which had spent about 10 to 15 years planting trees in public spaces. One of the things they said was this: people didn’t know they could pick the fruit, especially people from low-income backgrounds who felt more worried about trespassing. And, more generally, they wondered: Is it poisonous?

And so one of the more important things has been the creation of tree plaques, which we’re actually going to be distributing this winter, that include the variety of the apple, and say “Boston Tree Party 2011″ and “Free Apples.” I think having these markers will help to activate those trees.

The official seal of the Boston Tree Party.Q. Did you find people pushing back, saying things like: fruit trees are just way too messy?

A. [Chuckles] When you talk about fruit trees in the city, the first thing people say, is “I don’t want fruit dropping on my car!” That’s why I think it’s very important from the beginning to have a care structure. If you have a whole church, business, or school caring for two apple trees, you can collect what drops, and prune the trees. We’re also not saying, “Hey, elementary school, plant 40 fruit tress.” We’re saying, “Plant two and see how things go.”

Q. Why do you think you’re so inspired by growing food?

A. I grew up in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., and my Korean grandmother lived with us my whole life. Even when we lived in apartment buildings she grew Korean vegetables. And I think that really fascinated me as a kid — that wherever we were she was always growing some sort of food because it was so much a part of her culture.

When I was a kid, I kind of took it for granted — seeing her save seeds every year and carefully tend her squash and peppers — but I think that experience really stayed with me and informed my work and interests.

Q. Can you explain how your ideas of cross-pollination fit into the Boston Tree Party?

A. Being multiracial I’ve always been navigating cultural divides. So I think in some ways the idea of cross-pollination or the idea of interdependence and coming together across differences as a way to create better fruit is something that comes out of my personal experience.

Q. I have to ask, what’s your favorite fruit?

A. Apples. I grew up on the East Coast, where it’s a yearly tradition to go pick apples in the fall. It always represented this sense of abundance. The Golden Russet is my favorite right now.

Q. Do you have advice for people who might want to star
t something similar in their city?

A. I think a project like this is all about relationships. I had a zillion meetings with a zillion people from all different organizations and that’s what really got the projects going. And so everyone I talked to put me in touch with someone else. [The Boston Tree Party] is really built on that kind of legwork.

Q. Do you have plans to expand the project?

A. We have a few things in the works. We’re partnering with the MIT Center for Civic Media and a Hacks/Hackers to create an online interactive map and smart phone app with all the civic fruit in the Boston area. It will be a directory to this massive decentralized urban orchard we’re creating.