My name is Ivan Gonzales, and I am an intern this summer in the OSU Extension SNAP-Ed program in the Extension office in Lane County. I am majoring in family human services at the University of Oregon in Eugene. I am 21 and have recently discovered a passion for healthy living. I love getting my daily physical activity though a variety of different activities and I even teach physical education through the YMCA. I have been a vegetarian for about 10 years for health, ethical, and environmental reasons.
There are very clear expectations about how to present and perform at this internship. There were many online training sessions to prepare us, as well. My fellow Extension intern Molly Benjamin and I have taught three groups of kids three different recipes at the Bethel Farm Summer Camp in Eugene. The recipes were fresh garden salsa, vegetable wontons, and smoothies with a super-secret vegetable ingredient. Bethel Farm Summer Camp is an amazing experience that is completely free for Bethel School District students entering fourth and fifth grades. At the camp they have cooking, gardening, beekeeping, arts and crafts and nature exploration. All of the kids were taught measuring skills, knife skills and kitchen safety.
After teaching at the camp we transitioned to teaching cooking at Riverbend Elementary School in Springfield. We had two sessions of kindergartners at Riverbend and then incoming fourth-graders. The kindergarteners learned measuring skills and handwashing skills with a trail mix recipe while the fourth-graders learned knife skills and other basic kitchen skills with the fresh garden salsa recipe.
We are now transitioning away from teaching cooking and more into office and community work. The office work mainly consists of organizing and planning for our community work. We are planning to go to some local food banks and hand out samples of some of Extension Food Hero zucchini recipes and give information about healthy eating and answer any other questions individuals may have. I am excited to see what other community programs we will get involved in as well such as farmers markets and food donation sites.
