Some thoughts on CJA's agriculture program

"At CJA we have chickens.  These chickens have been taken care of by Mr. Dwyer and the ATF.  We feed chickens about one bag of chicken feed per week, which costs about $15.  The chickens also lay eggs.  We take the eggs, clean them off, and sell them at our CJA farmers' market.  We recently expanded our chicken run so that they can have more space.  The chickens love their new environment.  The chickens also love Mr. Dwyer."
--Jamari, grade 6

"What I like about ATF is that we help nature.  If people keep deteriorating it, there won't be one left.  We need nature and that's what we're doing: ATF is helping the environment and I like that.  That's why I joined. I like the environment and I want to help save it.  We wouldn't be here without it.  So I wouldn't want to see the day all nature dies, so I help any way possible."
--Casimir, grade 6

"Some of the problems with our food system now is our foods are sometimes processed in factories where they put chemicals and such sort in our foods to make them taste better but sometimes our food goes straight to store stock.  The small food system we have at CJA is a garden with healthy foods like greens, tomatoes, eggplant, etc.  We also have a compost and eggs right from the chicken.  Working with the small food system at CJA will help fix the problems with the food system.  We are not adding anything to make them taste better.  Our food system just harvests and uses or sells at a farmers' market."
--Terrence, grade 6

"Some problems with our food system is that people eat more unhealthy food than healthy food.  They eat unhealthy food because it is cheap.  They don't eat healthy food enough.  They don't eat enough because it is expensive.  We have a small food system at CJA because we grow some of our food.  We get some of our food from our garden, some from our chickens, and some from Gourmet Gorilla.  I'm excited to work with the small food system.  It will help fix the problems with the food system because we can help people learn where the food comes from.  We can persuade people to eat more healthy food and not unhealthy food."
--Rakeem, grade 5