HARRISON — Twelve Oxford Hills area young people have returned from a Massachusetts farm with a new appreciation for how to work together and make the world a better place.

The trip to the Heifer International Educational Center at Overlook Farm in Rutland, Mass., last month provided the group with a hands-on educational program about global hunger and poverty issues, organic and sustainable farming techniques and the importance of community building, organizer Mark Van Loan said.

The group is named S.K.O.R.E., which stands for Sharing Knowledge, Opportunity, Respect and Equality.

“While we were in the classroom, we learned a lot about how to work as a group,” said Miranda Murphy, a ninth-grade student from Harrison. “I felt good helping the staff work in the garden and I learned that they plant clover through the garden to help keep weeds from growing. They keep all of their seeds and dry them out and use those seeds to plant with next year, and everything is done by hand and everything is organic.”

The group also spent 24 hours in the Global Village, where each lot is designed to represent the home and yard of a typical family living in a certain country, Van Loan said.

“Each chaperon/youth group was faced with challenges, not the least of which was a very simple and meager portion of food for the entire group,” Van Loan said in a statement after the trip. “As chaperons, we had to step back completely and let the youth figure out everything from bartering at the marketplace, building a fire (with virtually no paper to help get it started) and cooking dinner and breakfast over an open fire. We also were faced with a family crisis, typical of poor families in our respective geographic areas, and had to work as a team to come up with a solution. Once dinner was completed and the chores were done, we had plenty of time to reflect on how much we take for granted in our daily lives.”

Murphy said she played the role of a blind person who had to be led around by her family.

“Bartering for things was cool because everyone talked in different languages. I learned so much and I am so glad I had this experience and I know we could all make the world a better place if we all worked together and helped each other and to look past what a person looks like on the outside to find out what is inside of them is what matters,” Murphy said. Working on a farm and keeping a garden was a lot of work, but it promotes healthy lifestyles and less dependence on spending money at the store, she said.

Heifer International is primarily known as an organization that donates livestock to needy people around the world so they can create a sustainable source of income, an integral part of battling poverty and hunger, Van Loan said.

He said the group will continue its work in a community garden, plan a community dinner using produce from the garden, look into several community-based projects and work on a slide show of their events to promote community awareness.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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