Most of the students at the Preschool for Creative Learning at University of South Florida do not know where their food comes from.
When asked where their food comes from, the children replied, “Publix.”
Joseph Michalsky retells the school’s interim director’s story with sigh. He says he was shocked by her account.
“They didn’t really understand that food comes out of the ground first, before it ends up on supermarket shelves,” he said.
Michalsky calls himself president pro tempore of Food Activists Revolutionizing Meals, or FARM, as he refers to it. The club has been unofficially meeting since 2010. In October, Michalsky used his connections with Student Government to officially establish the club as a USF student organization, thereby falling into his role as president pro tempore. His responsibilities include coordinating healthy food events and projects, such as the one Da Silva proposed.
“We were approached by Ms. Paula about teaching the children where their food comes from. She plans to make the school more earth friendly,” he said. “She wants to add a vegetable garden and a butterfly garden so that kids can see where their food comes from.”
“We plan take it step by step. First we’ll plant and grow the herbs and vegetables. Eventually we’ll have a day where we will make food with the garden plants so the kids can see where their food is actually coming from.”
Michalsky and FARM members assisted with the seed planting day. Students planted vegetable seeds using soil and toilet paper rolls. The children got to choose which vegetable they wanted to grow in the garden. They also got to decorate the popsicle stick that marks their plant.
“It was interesting seeing the kids running around and painting random stuff. All the kids chose to plant carrots, for some reason. We’re going to go back and have another seed planting day where we’ll add more variety to the garden.”
FARM members tend to the garden weekly to pull weeds and ensure the garden is flourishing, Michalsky said.
“We’ve had a couple difficulties along the way.”
“Whenever the kids see something they want to pull it. During the trial run we grew tomatoes. When the tomatoes started growing the kids pulled the little green tomatoes off before they were ripe, so the tomatoes died. It’s a constant learning process.”
His knowledge of the food and environmental issues permeated the conversation. He spewed endless facts about the subject. His explanation of his vegetarian lifestyle demonstrates his profound knowledge.
“It’s better for the human. It’s better for the animal. It’s better for the environment,” he said. “Animal agriculture is the largest source of water pollution, air pollution, methane emissions and ammonia emissions in the United States. It’s the number one reason for deforestations of the tropical rainforests in Central and South America.”
Michalsky said that his work is motivated by the state of America’s food production industry.
“Based on the research I’ve done, over the past 60 years, we’ve become very much separated from the food that we eat. Food production has become very efficient, but also very industrialized. The number of farmers has decreased dramatically. Now we’re beginning to realize how our food affects our health and the kind of diseases we acquire.”
Michalsky wants to teach others to be more aware of the food the industry is providing us today. He wants to promote healthy, organic foods and the health benefits they have in the long run.
Michalsky is a fourth year civil engineering student. He says he wants to use his degree to continue to promote sustainability. As his work with FARM and the preschool depict, Michalsky is passionate about teaching others about the benefits of a healthy, sustainable society. He wants to focus his future career on the environmental impact public transportation. He plans to graduate from USF in 2015.