VIRGINIA BEACH — Farmers, gardeners and representatives from several local agenices read to students at several schools in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach this past week, sharing a story about strawberries while connecting local youth to agriculture.
The visits were of part the Agriculture Reading in the Classroom program organized by the Virginia Dare Soil & Water Conservation District, which works in both cities.
Partners included Farm Bureaus in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. In addition to the visits, copies of the book, I Love Strawberries by author Shannon Anderson and illustrator Jaclyn Sinquett, were provided to school libraries.
Kathleen Sullivan, district manager for Virginia Dare, said readings connect young people to farming.
“They’ll make that connection between their food and farming,” she said.
Sullivan read to students on Wednesday, March 15, in the library of Providence Elementary School in Virginia Beach. She was joined by Kendall Topping, urban and community forestry specialist with the Virginia Department of Forestry, and Byron Stonecypher, the president of Chesapeake Farm Bureau.
“And guess what?” Sullivan said while introducing Stonecypher to a group of young students. “He is a farmer.”
“What? one student asked.
“Did you know we have farms in Chesapeake and Virginia Beach?” Sullivan asked.
The answers came all at once.
“Some say no,” Sullivan said. “Some say yes. But we absolutely do.”
And then she turned to the reading.
“Who loves strawberries?”
There were many fans of strawberries, which are grown in both cities.
Following the reading, Stonecypher showed students young soybean plants that he had brought in a basket. He had grown them at home from some of last year’s seeds. And he showed pictures of tilling, planting and harvesting.
“This is the big combine,” Stonecypher said. “It picks corn.”
“What?” a student exclaimed.
Another student asked whether some strawberries are sour.
“If they’re green, they’re sour,” Stonecypher advised.
Topping noted that she works with lots of trees.
“I bet you guys didn’t know that trees are also a crop to grow,” Topping said. “They make things like paper.”
And she showed them an enormous pinecone – and a log that had been gnawed.
“Do you see all the teeth marks on it?” she said.
From a beaver, a student noted.
The conversation continued.
“It’s a good thing to do to get young people aware of agriculture,” Stonecypher said after the presentation, “because they don’t live around it like they used to.”
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