Staff Spotlight: Monse!

Monse, our Bilingual Program Coordinator, is entering their second year with SustainEd Farms. Every year we have gained more staffing capacity and as of the beginning of 2025 we have 4 year-round staff. With the added staff capacity we have been able to dive deeper into planning and systematizing things in a more intentional and slower paced way than before! Monse brings so much to our team and I thought it would be great to spotlight them and share what they have been up to as well as reflections on last year.

What is a conversation or moment with a student or community member that has stuck with you?
"I think of one of the times we were at Sewall Dahlia. We were teaching 2-3 year olds about trying new things and we did that by making infused water. And I remember one little boy, he was so cute - he didn’t really participate but he just sat and smiled at me the whole time. While no words were spoken, it was a good realization about not all kids are super verbal but the more you’re around them the more you tap into their communication style. It was also cool to just witness the next generation of happy go-getters.”
What has kept you busy during the off-season?
A lot of side projects! The biggest one being site mapping of all of our garden sites. This entails making documents that are visually descriptive of what our sites look like - we plan to use them when we start planting and introducing new staff to sites. I also worked on general clean up where need be, specifically at our new schools. Additionally, I was/am still teaching middle schoolers in food justice and nutrition at Kepner three times a week. When I wasn’t busy with all of that I dabbled in a bit of grant writing and applied to the Sprouts Gets Kids Cooking Program which will hopefully provide a cooking cart, teacher stipend and a Sprouts gift card for my Kepner students when we have cooking days!

What does a typical day look like for you during the growing & programming season?
A typical day starts with me showing up to my programming spot for the day & running the same activity for about 4-7 classes. Then afterwards, I will allocate some time to maintenance, watering, weeding, beautification of my assigned gardens. Or I’ll address other side quests such as cleaning, grabbing things from the shed or reaching out to a schools’ Facilities Manager to make sure we’re on the same page. Often I will help out wherever need be and if I have middle school that day I’ll go straight from elementary programming to Kepner and bask in sharing knowledge with students all day. Finally, I’ll head home to unwind and prepare for the next day.
Do you have a specific take away you hope all of your students leave with?
I do! I hope they take away a love for nature. My biggest thing is love & appreciation for the space that they have. They may not have the biggest garden or even access to green space at home but enjoying the space you do have and the time you’re there is special to me. With my middle schoolers, who I’m with many times a week, I hope they learn to take agency over their nutrition, and inspire them to be more open minded in trying new things and NEVER being scared to get a little dirty. That’s a lot of takeaways, but they’re all connected!
Is there a food or dish that makes you feel connected to your family/friends?
I have several. The biggest one is albondigas (meatball stew/soup) . It's one of my favorite things, I always used to ask my mom to make it growing up and get excited now when she tells me she’s making. With my friends I think of pizza. Something shareable, snackish but always hits the spot. For sharing, I love to make lasagna for the people that I love. I only make it once a year because it is time intensive. Then there’s always frijoles charros at the family meet ups.

For the last 8-weeks Monse has been participating in a class, for garden educators, hosted by Life Lab. This course is intended as a space to support garden educators to enhance and elevate their teaching skills by providing 1on1 coaching sessions, science and nutrition based lessons, and building community with other garden-based educators. For their final project they were asked to write a reflection and they have given me permission to share a snippet of what they wrote:

“Being a Garden Educator wasn't something I would have imagined I'd be doing a year and a half ago yet, it's a position I feel I fell into divinely. When I began teaching garden education in May of last year, I instantly fell in love with connecting students with the garden and teaching them about sustainability and nutrition. [There] was a big learning curve for me to teach young people as the only experience I had prior was teaching my college peers. With time I learned that teaching young people was something I was very passionate about doing and needed a bit more support to do more effectively”