Food pantry hires interns to help youth, garden

During the years, IU sophomore Julie Ponce has cultivated interests in gardening and working with children. Now, as an intern at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, she has found a way to combine both interests into one activity. \nPonce is one of four interns Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard hired this spring to help with garden efforts.\n Interns will have a variety of responsibilities at youth gardening and production sites. They will grow organic produce and coordinate programs for youth participation.\n“Because we see the potential to grow a lot more food this year and because there are only two paid staff members, volunteers and interns in the garden are great assets,” said Assistant Director Stephanie Solomon. “Last year, we grew over 2,200 pounds of food.”\nMother Hubbard’s Cupboard attempts to provide sustainable organic food for people in need, according to its Web site.\nInterns are divided between youth gardening sites and production sites. Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard hired four interns who will have different responsibilities based on where they work.\n“Their responsibilities are to keep up the garden, depending on the weather, helping to coordinate groups of volunteers and taking a leadership role in the garden,” Solomon said. “They’re going to be 10 hours a week in the garden, and that depends on their schedule.”\nThe youth programs are a significant part of the Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard internship, she said. Interns will create programs for the youth garden at the after-school program at the Banneker Community Center. \nThe community center is “an old school the city owns that was given to Parks and Recreation, and the main use is a children’s after- school program,” Solomon said.\nPonce heard about the internship through her work with Indiana Public Interest Research Group.\n“We were required to send Stephanie a resume and a cover letter and then we had an interview with Stephanie,” Ponce said in an e-mail interview. “Next week we are going through orientation where we get to learn about all three gardens and learn about the programming that is involved with them, as well.”\nPonce has previous volunteer experience that she said prepared her for the internship, she said. She said she hopes to learn ways to garden using sustainable organic methods as opposed to using chemicals. Ponce also said she wanted to learn to create better programs for youth.