YOUTH INITIATIVE HIGH SCHOOL

Waldorf Initiative in Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA

  
 

 

December 2006

 

Dear Friends and Supporters of the Youth Initiative High School:  

 

I am writing to invite you into our kitchen for a glimpse of the work going on at the Youth Initiative High School, and to ask for your financial help towards our $40,000 fundraising goal this year.

 

Much as the kitchen was once thought of as the heart of a home, at the Youth Initiative, the kitchen is arguably the heart of our school. It is where students learn the basics of making a white sauce and of canning the year’s tomato harvest. It is where they have the opportunity to cook their own lunches, or make cookies after school for the Friday night Coffeehouse. It is where Jane Marie, our intrepid Nutrition and Cooking instructor, stays late to teach evening classes for Organic Valley employees or for low-income moms through the state’s Women, Infants & Children program. It is where YIHS students and parents produce meal after meal for fundraising events each year, from dinner theater meals to the Mother’s Day Brunch. It is due to their work in our kitchen that YIHS students were confident enough to cook for thousands of people in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

 

A Spring, 2005 report in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that, for the first time in 200 years, current trends in childhood obesity in the United States may soon indicate an actual decline in life expectancy. How can this be? How did we, in one of the richest countries in the world, manage to transform our society into one in which our children will not be expected to live as long as ourselves? It points to a growing disconnection between us and our food—between the natural world that makes food possible and what it is we are actually eating.

 

At the Youth Initiative, we believe that maintaining this connection is essential to the development of the whole human being. So, as part of our high school curriculum, all students study Agriculture and Nutrition. As our students learn about the soil as a living entity, they understand how many delicate interactions are necessary to produce living, healthy food, how easy it is to upset this balance in pursuit of productivity or convenience, and what disastrous effects can result from such choices. They learn about their bodies, understanding the balance of nutrients required to keep them healthy and alert. And, finally, they learn how to cook.  And this completes the chain: nature—food—human being.

 

The existence of these programs at the Youth Initiative is an example of terroir—that sense of a geographical place that comes all the way through to a finished product. Our relationship with the organic farming community here has provided our students with opportunities to visit local Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms, to visit research farms, like the Michael Fields Institute and Tillers International, and, more recently, to work our new school garden at a teacher’s nearby farm. From there, students have sold produce at the farmers market, to a downtown café, and to Organic Valley. It follows, of course, that we should provide the space and equipment for students to learn about their own nutritional needs and how these are satisfied through the foods they eat—the foods they grew!

 

In our kitchen, Jane Marie has presided over many unforgettable classes and events—persevering and producing delicious results in spite of temperamental equipment, blown fuses, and frozen water pipes. She has taught her students the basics of healthy eating, using local, organic ingredients wherever possible. She has brought in guest chefs with a passion for Indian or French cuisine. She has taken students out to her farm to prepare a lunch of venison and vegetables, and wild greens that they gathered themselves.

 

This year, we are thrilled to honor the place our kitchen holds in our school. Recently, through the generous help of many individuals and organizations, we procured stainless steel sinks and counters, cupboards and stoves.  We are turning the kitchen into a beautiful teaching space with a logical layout for both lecturing and cooking. The work is not quite complete, but our entire community is already gaining from it.

 

There is a quote from Rudolf Steiner, the founder of Waldorf education, regarding the state of nutrition in the world (and, remember, this would have been early in the 20th century). A student of his, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, had asked why working with the “spiritual impulses” (meaning, I think, the will to act out of one’s higher self) seemed so weak amongst people of the time. Steiner replied:

 

"That is a problem of nutrition. Nutrition today does not give man the strength to manifest the spiritual in the physical. The bridge from thinking to willing and acting cannot be built anymore."

 

It is up to us, then, to lay the foundations to rebuild that bridge. We strive to bring this kind of consciousness to education in the belief that its benefits will reach far beyond our place and time.

 

Please be generous. Please support us in this work.

 

Thank you.

 

Sincerely,

 

Liz Cox

YIHS Parent and Development Coordinator

 

Your tax deductible donation can be sent to: Youth Initiative High School, 500 E Jefferson St #302, Viroqua, WI 54665 USA, or you can donate via our website by clicking here.