The latest news from C.R.A.F.T.

CRAFT Seniors Owen Whalen, Kody Lantigne, Maya Sluka, Sadie Boulbol, Sophia Rosenbach, Brody Allen, Kaitlyn Burres and Priscilla Richardson presented at UVPTC (Upper Valley Teaching Place Collaborative) Conference. Students shared a variety of experiences they have learned from in CRAFT including Stewardship Action Projects, Immersive Semester at the King Farm, German Exchange, creating CRAFT as a non profit organization, competing in Envirothon, CRREL project, service learning projects and studies in APES. The students were articulate, showed true leadership and represented WUHSMS extremely well! The adult educators they presented to were extremely impressed by all the incredible work they have done in their school and community.

Students in Regenerative Agriculture volunteered to pass out food from the Vermont Foodbank during our monthly community distribution. VeggieVanGo distributes 2 million pounds of food annually across the state and helps feed thousands of families. 

Students in the CRAFT Immersive Semester volunteered at Sustainable Woodstock to help make window inserts that reduce home energy consumption. This program made inserts for 27 homes this year and in the past 4 years has made enough inserts to save up to 8,000 gallons of fuel oil. 

Students in Regenerative Agriculture helped plant native seeds that will be cold stratified this winter, divided in the summer and sold next fall in our native plant sale. Students planted locally foraged seeds as well as ones from local seed companies to offer over 35 native plants to the community next fall. These native plants are well adapted to our region, require less water, no pesticide or fertilizers and create habitat for our native pollinator species. They improve biodiversity, can withstand floods and drought and bring beauty wherever they are planted. 

CRAFT Immersive students have been planning for the future of the King Farm while also learning about permaculture design. During that process, students are learning about agroforestry practices and planting important native fruit and nut trees into the air pruning beds they made with the help of our garden and greenhouse manager, Abbie. Students helped plant thousands of seeds that will eventually grow into seedlings that can be planted to improve the ecological health and diversity of the forest as well as provide food for many species, including us!