Wyoming first lady tours the Big Horn Basin; makes three stops in Washakie County

WORLAND - Wyoming first lady Jennie Gordon took a tour through the Big Horn Basin as she visited local area entities that have either worked with or supported the Wyoming Hunger Initiative including three stops in Washakie County.

The visits around the Basin included the Worland Community Garden, Crisis Prevention and Response Center, West Side Elementary and Paintrock Processing in Hyattville.

Gordon said that the tour of the Crisis Prevention and Response Center showed the impact that the Hunger Initiative has been able to have on the area, and how the community garden is able to distribute the healthy food around the community.

Gordon then went to West Side to tour the garden that has become an essential outdoor classroom over the last three months for students to learn different standards.

She said that this is the first year for the gardening program with the Hunger Initiative and she is hoping to see how the program goes as they plan to continue these programs that have been rolled out in recent years.

Gordon then went to Hyattville to ensure that Paintrock Processing had everything they needed to succeed with the Food from the Field initiative.

"We definitely want to make sure that the programs that we are doing now are really robust," Gordon said. "That is part of getting all of these processors on board and making sure they have all of them on board."

Programs under the Wyoming Hunger Initiative include Food From the Field, Food From the Farm + Ranch and the most recent is Grow a Little Extra where the WHI has partnered with University of Wyoming Cent$ible Nutrition and Master Gardener programs.

COMMUNITY GARDEN

The first lady made a stop at the Worland Community Garden, to visit with the volunteers who help keep the garden running and discuss techniques used in the garden.

Caitlyn Price Youngquist of the University of Wyoming Extension Office in Washakie County said that it was an honor to have the first lady visit, and fun to show off the crew and all their hard work.

"Her visit to the garden was a great way to highlight the hard work of our AmeriCorps crew and volunteers," Youngquist said.

She showed the first lady the different techniques that the garden uses from no-till farming to an experiment that the garden is using this year with wool for mulch as opposed to heavy straw mulch. Wool is high in nitrogen and retains moisture.

"Seeing the incorporation of the wool to try and keep the retention of the water and keep the heat down is something I had not really thought of," Gordon said.

WEST SIDE

After visiting the community garden, the first lady made a stop at West Side Elementary to take a tour of their garden which serves as an outdoor classroom for the students.

West Side teacher Andrea Cooley said that they were able to receive a grant from the University of Wyoming Extension Office and the Washakie County Conservation District to help improve their garden.

Cooley said that Youngquist has been able to come over and help the students learn how to plant each plant.

"The kids have been loving the project and want to spend all of their recesses out working in the garden doing something," Cooley said.

Cooley said that along with other donations of resources from local businesses they have been able to improve the garden even more.

Cooley said that students are even learning about what is able to go into compost as well as helping their lunch and collecting other items that are compostable during recess to help nurture the garden.

"I love the passion they had and they were so proud of what they were doing," Gordon said.

With the grant from the extension office, they received trees and were able to plant an orchard as well on the grass.

Washakie County School District No. 1 also had some additional funding to provide to the project, as West Side plans to expand the garden into a greenhouse which will include what is called a "farm bot" which allows for students to program a robot to plant, water and maintain the plants from an iPad.

"It was so cool to see something we have talked about conceptually for a while and then to actually see boots on the ground and see the passion that all the gardeners and especially the students at the school had for what they were doing," Gordon said.

More information on the Wyoming Hunger Initiative programs can be found at nohungerwyo.gov.