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BETHEL — Students, teachers and volunteers from Bethel and other area communities will join together to celebrate the harvest at “The Fantastic Food Frenzy,” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 17, at Telstar Middle-High School.

The event is free. The public is invited to enjoy the food, grown and prepared by students and volunteers from the schools and other educational gardens in Western Maine.

The event will provide an opportunity for students to donate food to the dinner, assist in preparing the meal and display information about their garden projects. Live music will be performed by students.

Students will also have a booth at the Bethel Harvestfest on Saturday, Sept. 18, where they will display their projects and produce.

The Fantastic Food Frenzy is a presentation of the Telstar Middle and High School “G.O.T. Farms?” student-driven service learning project. The project is focused on sustainable agriculture and renewable energy. The garden project began last school year when students selected seeds to plant, learned about the process of growing produce by visiting a local farm and made healthy dishes, such as minestrone soup, with a local cook.

The students planted and maintained the gardens at Telstar until the end of the school year last June. Over the summer, community volunteers and students cared for the gardens, picked produce and preserved the harvest; some foods were donated to and prepared for the Bethel Alliance Church monthly community dinner.

Summer volunteers included garden masters from the Western Mountains Senior College who were paired with local business sponsors. The G.O.T. Farms? volunteers connected with the WMSC and another community group focused on promoting local foods at a forum of Bethel-area nonprofits in the spring of 2009. This led to a local foods and sustainability workshop at the Bryant Pond 4H camp in June. These collaborations sprouted the idea for a September community dinner and exhibition.

While planning the community event, the group discovered several other area educational garden projects and an invitation went out to join in one harvest and educational event. The garden projects involved in The Fantastic Food Frenzy and exhibit on Sept. 17 will be: Telstar Middle-High School, Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, Hebron Academy, Bryant Pond 4H Camp, Alan Day Community Garden, Mountain Valley Middle School and Gould Academy.

For more information, contact G.O.T. Farms? project advisor Melissa Prescott, Telstar Middle School, at 824-2136 or send an e-mail to [email protected]. More information about the project is available at www.gotfarms.wordpress.com.

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