By GARLAND KENNEDY
Daily Sitka Sentinel Staff Writer
    Harvesting vegetables that grew over the summer, students at Pacific High opened the school year Tuesday with a hands-on lesson in both gardening and collaboration at the garden plot behind the Lincoln Street school.
    At Pacific High, students can enroll in gardening or culinary classes, but the entire student body of about 40 teenagers was on hand Tuesday gathering the vegetables that will be incorporated into school meals, PHS teacher Mandy Summer said.
“This is a stewardship day – at the beginning of each school year we do what’s called orientation,” Summer said. “This is a six-day orientation. Sometimes it’s two weeks, but it is all stewardship projects, outdoor activities, community building activities to get students to know each other, to get to know staff. It really breaks down those barriers before we start in the academic classes.”
    Formerly Pacific High’s principal, Summer now teaches culinary classes and works with meal preparation both at PHS and nearby Xoots Elementary.
    Over the past decade, Pacific High’s farm-to-table program has grown from humble beginnings, Summer said.
    “About 12 years ago, we had one raised bed, and it was in the front of the building, on a grassy lawn, because that’s what the front was before our school was remodeled and the landscaping was put out there,” she said. “We had a ‘reading and weeding’ class… Garden plants were the theme of the class, and kids practiced different kinds of reading strategies by becoming the expert in that garden plant. So that’s really how we started incorporating gardening into the curriculum. And kids became very excited about watching their seeds grow and taking recordings of them and writing about them.”
    “In 2015 we had the one raised bed, we built maybe three or four more,” she continued. “And over the years, we built another two, another three, another four. Then we got a grant, a partnership grant, with Sitka Tribe of Alaska that provided the funding to purchase the greenhouse.”
    The school greenhouse, completed in 2023, is now in its first fully operational year and is brimming with plants. Near the greenhouse are a number of raised beds and a fenced garden with fruit trees.
    Andrea Fraga, who grows produce full time at Middle Island Gardens, is the school’s garden coordinator. At the orientation Tuesday she instructed students in proper techniques, from digging potatoes to cleaning garlic. She first began working with the school in 2021 under a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, and now holds the position thanks to a state Department of Natural Resources Specialty Crop Block Grant secured by the Sitka Conservation Society.
    “We’re doing a big harvest. We’ve got garlic and shallots today,” Fraga said. “In the greenhouse, folks are harvesting tomatoes, zucchini, bush beans, we have some mint in there. Outdoors here we have some cabbage and kale harvested, chives.”
    Part of the DNR grant, she said, is to examine “what can grow here. What does it actually look like to grow radish or carrot – and self-sufficiency.”
    Students gain a sense of place and pride in their work through the gardening class, Fraga said, and can eat the products of their labor at the end.
    “I try to align production with the school year, but then we have things like lettuce and tomatoes in the summer,” the teacher said. “We have a fair amount of volunteers, so they get to eat what’s available in the summer…  I’ve been growing produce for years on Middle Island, but I thought it’d be neat to try to teach younger generations how to do it as well, because Sitka really needs that.”
    PHS junior TJ Vaughn-Jeske has enjoyed seeing the garden develop and expand in his years at Pacific High.
    “The amazing harvest — there’s always a lot of vegetables and stuff to pick. A lot of new varieties this year,” he said. “Overall, I’m learning how to sustain myself and grow my own plants, in case I ever wanted to start a farm or garden. When I first got here, we didn’t have that big greenhouse or much of this at all either,” the junior said, gesturing at a series of raised gardening beds. “We used to only have cabbage, garlic and a few others. That’s really how much it changed.”
    His favorite aspect of the school and its gardening program is “definitely the people, the community that we bring together to pick everything… Just an amazing place in general. The community is super nice, everyone knows each other.”
    Hard at work cleaning fresh-picked garlic was freshman Skip Votaw.
    “We’re just learning how to process fresh food out of the garden, cook it,” he said. “It’s healthier than normal school food. This is fresh from a garden turning into our lunch.”
    He plans to continue his education with the school’s gardening and culinary classes, and appreciates that PHS offers such a comprehensive gardening program.
    “We have the best food system in all of Southeast Alaska for school lunches,” he said.
    PHS senior Katie Elder enjoys the gardening program, and has watched the garden grow dramatically through the years.
    “I’ve been here since I was a sophomore, so I’ve only had a few years’ experience here, and when I first got here, we didn’t have the greenhouse,” she said. “It’s been really nice to have through the summer and up until now even. And I loved helping with the plant sale in the beginning of spring. That was quite a bit of fun. We ended up making quite a bit for our garden program,” Elder said.
    “My favorite one to grow probably is cabbages, because they get so much bigger and denser than what you can buy in the store, or tomatoes, because fresh tomatoes are way better than store-bought ones,” she said. As a side project, Elder is working with edible mushrooms such as blue and pink oysters and lion’s mane.
    Pacific High’s gardening program has become a model for others, Mandy Summer said.
    “We have groups that come in and they want to see what Pacific High School is doing with this farm and food program, because it’s so unique,” the teacher said. “And a lot of other schools have tried small gardens or doing their own food, but I mean, we’re really doing it on what’s becoming a much larger scale. And so it’s just really exciting to see that other people are coming to learn from us as well.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF SITKA LOCAL FOODS NETWORK

Sitka Farmers Market manager Debe Brincefield, center, presents the Table of the Day Award for the Aug. 10 Sitka Farmers Market to Rock and Charlene Peterson of Jam-n-Peppers. Rock and Charlene sold jalapeno-pepper-flavored apricot jam. They received a certificate, a tote bag, a selection of Alaska Flour Company products, an Alaska Farmers Markets Cookbook, some produce, and Sitka Farmers Market special label chocolate bars. National Farmers Market Week was Aug. 4-10, and this was part of the celebration. The next Sitka Farmers Market is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian Street). Vendors can register online (by Thursday night) at https://sitkafarmersmarket.eventsmart.com. More details about the Sitka Local Foods Network and Sitka Farmers Market can be found at http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SITKA LOCAL FOODS NETWORK
Sitka Farmers Market manager Debe Brincefield, right, presents the Table of the Day Award for the July 27 Sitka Farmers Market to Cora Nisbet, left, and Jill Scheidt of the Sitka Cancer Survivors Society (not pictured is Bonnie Richards). The society sold quilt raffle tickets and also provided information about grants it offers to cancer patients needing help with treatment. They received a certificate, a tote bag, a selection of Alaska Flour Company products, a bag of salad greens, some rhubarb, and several Sitka Farmers Market special label chocolate bars. National Famrmers Market Week is Aug. 4-10, and the next Sitka Farmers Market is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 10, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian Street). Vendors can register online (by Thursday night) at https://sitkafarmersmarket.eventsmart.com. More details about the Sitka Local Foods Network and Sitka Farmers Market can be found at http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SITKA LOCAL FOODS NETWORK

TABLE OF THE DAY — Sitka Farmers Market manager Debe Brincefield, back row, second from left, presents the Table of the Day Award for the July 13 Sitka Farmers Market to the Sitka Spruce Tips/Alaska Way Of Life 4-H Club, including club advisor Jasmine Shaw (back row, left), Logan Miller, Aven Powell, Madeline Filipek, and AmeriCorps volunteer Romy Bekeris (not pictured is Noah Apathy). The club members, who sold arts and crafts, baked goods, and homemade preserves, were participating in the Sitka Farmers Market youth vendor program for those younger than 14. They received a certificate, a tote bag, a selection of Alaska Flour Company products, a bag of salad greens, some rhubarb, assorted stickers, and several Sitka Farmers Market special label chocolate bars. The next Sitka Farmers Market is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 27, at the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian Street). Vendors can register online (by Thursday) at https://sitkafarmersmarket.eventsmart.com. More details about the Sitka Local Foods Network and Sitka Farmers Market can be found at http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org.

The Sitka Farmers Market will kick off its 17th summer from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. this Saturday, June 29, at Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian Street). There are six more markets scheduled for the same time on alternate Saturdays, July 13, July 27, Aug. 10, Aug. 24, Sept. 7, and Sept. 21, at ANB Founders Hall.

“Since the COVID-19 pandemic limited our markets in recent years, forcing us to move and change our format, we’re happy to be getting back to some normalcy this year,” Sitka Local Foods Network board president Charles Bingham said. “While we are still monitoring Covid outbreaks, we won’t do more than encourage masks, not require them, unless we go back to a Moderate or High Risk level. The markets will have othe usual variety of fresh local produce, fish, homemade baked goods, cottage foods, cooked food, arts and crafts, and more. We hope to see you at ANB Founders Hall this summer.”

The Sitka Farmers Market is a community event hosted by the Sitka Local Foods Network, whose mission is to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans. Our focus is on local — fresh produce, fish, baked goods, prepared foods, cottage foods, arts and crafts — and all products must be made in Alaska (preferably in Sitka or Southeast Alaska, cooked foods may use non-local foods so long as the food is cooked on site).

The Sitka Farmers Market gots its start from the second Sitka Health Summit, held in April 2008, when Sitka residents chose two food-related community wellness projects to work on for the next year — to create a local foods market and to start a community greenhouse. Later in April, St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church made its backyard available for growing produce, which became St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden, and by August the first of three Sitka Farmers Markets was held. Those projects led to the creation of the Sitka Local Foods Network. Since then the Sitka Farmers Market has grown, and is known as one of the top markets in the state.

After having to relocate for two years due to COVID-19, we returned to ANB Founders Hall in 2022. We will have indoor and outdoor spaces, inside ANB Founders Hall and outside in the Baranof Island Housing Authority parking lot next to ANB Founders Hall. We’d love to have a few food trucks as a food court in the BIHA parking lot.

Since COVID-19 is still around, we will encourage masks inside the ANB Founders Hall unless Sitka is at the Moderate/Medium or High risk levels. While most people now are vaccinated against the coronavirus, there still are people who are high risk medically, or aren’t vaccinated, and there are periodic hot spots when the illness flares up. We don’t want the market to be a place that spreads the coronavirus. Even with our outside booths, we encourage vendors and customers to wear masks, to use hand sanitizer, and to avoid bunching up while giving others six feet of space.

In 2020, we launched our online vendor registration website, http://sitkafarmersmarket.eventsmart.com, and we will continue to use that this year. Vendors need to register by the Thursday before each market to be guaranteed a spot. Tables/booths are $40 each, with a special of $240 (instead of $280) for someone registering for all seven markets before the first one takes place. We also have a youth vendor program, where youth ages 14 or younger can reserve a table for $20 for the full season. Since we are at Low on the COVID-19 risk level right now, we are offering half-tables this year at $25 each.

Please read the market vendor rules and responsibilities on our online registration website. All vendors using this site to register for the market will be held to these rules. Unless you specify you want to be outside, we will try to find room for you indoors.

Vendors can pay using PayPal or credit/debit card. When you get to the Payment options, click PayPal (not Invoice) and it should give you the option of using a PayPal account or four different types of cards (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, Discover). If you prefer to pay by cash or check, contact Charles Bingham at 907-623-7660. We will provide a refund for cancellations, but to get the refund you are required to let us know before Wednesday of the week of your registered market that you can’t make it. This is $5 less than the $40 or $25 table fees, since we are billed for transaction fees and other expenses. There is no refund if you don’t let us know until after Wednesday.

Debe Brincefield is the new Sitka Farmers Market manager this summer. Laura Schmidt is our lead gardener at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, where the Sitka Local Foods Network grows most of the produce it sells at the market. Charles Bingham is the assistant market manager and the president of the Sitka Local Foods Network. Brincefield was market manager in 2014-15.

In addition to vendors, we also are looking for volunteers to help us set up the markets, take down the markets, and sell produce at the Sitka Local Foods Network farm stand during the market. You can get more information about how to volunteer by emailing sitkafarmersmarket@gmail.com or contacting Brincefield at 907-738-4323.

For questions about the market, email us at sitkafarmersmarket@gmail.com or call (907) 623-7660. More details about the market will be posted on the Sitka Local Foods Network website, http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org, and shared on its Facebook pages — https://www.facebook.com/SitkaLocalFoodsNetwork and 
https://www.facebook.com/SitkaFarmersMarket — and on Twitter, https://www.twitter.com/SitkaLocalFoods.