This past Thursday we took a break from farming to learn about salt marshes and how  valuable they are to coastal regions. We watched a few videos and listened to a Rhode Island Public Radio report about salt marsh conservation before taking a field trip to see a salt marsh in person. We drove thirty minutes to the Touisset Marsh Wildlife Refuge in Warren, RI. On the drive up I had four of the youth staff in my car and we each took turns picking songs to play. It was fun to listen to everyone’s choices, all singing a long in some moments and in others discovering song’s we hadn’t heard before (K-Pop as a personal example).

When we arrived at the marsh, Alyssa, one of SCLT programmers, gave us the assignment to complete a “sit spot.” A sit spot entails sitting in one place for about ten minutes and situating yourself so that no other humans are in your field of vision. In those ten or so minutes, you are meant to observe the movement, colors, sounds, smells around you as well as your own emotions. This exercise, as simple as it was, was the main activity we did on site. Afterwards, we each went around and shared one thing we noticed. The overwhelming response from the youth staff was that they loved the experience. Most of us found it to be relaxing and everyone had noticed different things about the same place. Mostly, it was really exciting for all of us to see such striking scenery so close to our home.

This experience, a long with many others, made me see the value of just hanging out together as a group. It is important that we learn about the food system, it is important that we better understand farming and it is important that we see the effects of global warming on our lives. It is also important that we have fun together in a beautiful place or just driving around listening to music. When I talked to my supervisor Kevin Jankowski about these experiences he reminded me of the Maya Angelou quote:

“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”