Katie’s Blog

As Phineus and Ferb would say (wait a second, Ferb doesn’t say much, so as Phineus would say), 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along to end it, the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it. Well that’s not the case for me. I had a blast this summer working in my gardens, swimming, and playing tennis. School starts in two days. New year. New grade. Fresh start. And I have a locker now!!!! I am really excited about starting 6^th grade!

                There are so many exciting things I am working on this year like working with a school in South Africa and starting a huge composting program in my school! I also see chickens in my near future.  That is just a sneak preview of the year ahead!   I also will be working closely with my 6^th grade science class, planting seeds, testing soil, and creating “potions” to keep deer and fire ants away!

                Fall planting season is getting closer and closer.  We plan to have a big crop of lettuce this year. We will be using a lot of the seeds from Disney too! Thanks again Disney Gardeners at the Land in Epcot for all your help and support! And thanks to Mr. Bob and his AWESOME greenhouse we will be able to start tons of seeds there!!! We are going to re-till the Pine Forest garden to plant potatoes too. I can’t wait! I would go on and on in this blog but it there is a lot to do and I promise I will keep you posted on all of my new garden adventures!

I am in the car on my way home from a trip to Cape Cod, Massachusetts where I visited my grandmother. My grandmother lives in an area where lots of people come to vacation over the summer and rent beautiful houses near the beach. We stayed in a vacation home too. We had a full kitchen which was great and we made breakfast and lunch every day. When we left on Friday, we tried to bring all of the leftover food that we could home, but we had to leave some food there, milk, eggs, bread, etc.  We just didn’t have any room in our cooler.

My mom, dad and I started talking about home many people probably leave food in their vacation homes when they are done with their trip or just throw the food away. So much good food must go to waste. Imagine what could be done with all that food.   I know when people are on vacation they are most likely not thinking about the homeless and hungry. But what if they did? What if at the end of our vacations in those beautiful beach homes we all came together and found a way to donate that extra food to local shelters and soup kitchen. Imagine the impact we could have on the communities we vacationed in. Right now it is just a thought but there must be a way to save that food and help people in need. Maybe before you rented a house you were asked to fill out a form asking if you have an extra food left that you would be willing to donate it to a soup kitchen.  Volunteers could pick up the food and bring it to shelters and soup kitchens. Just a thought, but isn’t that how everything starts.

Ms. Lisa is back!!!! For those of you who don’t know Ms. Lisa is my Master Gardener, my teacher, my mentor, sometimes my math tutor and my friend. We have missed her so much this summer! Yesterday I went to go visit her. The reason we have not been working together recently is because she just had a baby boy, Alexander, and he must be one of the luckiest boys on the planet because he has such an amazing mom. Ms. Lisa is so personable, genuinely nice and so much fun to be around.  She is so excited to get back out into the gardens and get dirty again. We started planning for the fall gardens and they are going to be amazing! I can’t wait to get back out and start working with her again. We are excited to have her expertise back! We missed you Ms. Lisa & we can’t wait for Alexander to come help us plant!!!!

Yesterday I met a Prince. He may not live in a castle (though not many of us do these days) but he is worth his weight in gold!

Mr. Prince and I met by accident. He was looking for the weather and he found me. Maybe it wasn’t an accident at all. I think we were meant to meet because we both want the same thing…to make sure there are no hungry people!

When Mr. Prince came across an article on-line in our local newspaper about a food drive I was holding (he was looking for the weather) he wrote the following comment:

"How we can we learn from such a child’s action’s?
I know of what it is not to be able to eat for day’s as a Child and now as a disabled adult.I earn $10.00 too much for food stamp’s. How ever I use a medical service dog and well.. he take’s care of me. So I have to make sure he is healthy.I am cursed and blessed.There are no soup kitchen’s out here in Cross or Monks Corner.Nothing.One my be blessed to obtain a small plastic bag of out dated worm infested food.I have became ill once on a bad can.We don’t want to go there. The hospital bill was some thing else.When your hungry. That is that.I am blessed I have very fertile earth and over the 20 better year’s installed irrigation.My fruit tree’s are heavy and the vinyard will soon be full of quater sized grapes.The shame is I have all the tool’s.Picking poles(Wire basket’s with metal finger’s).I’ll contact this young lady’s Mom and Dad.Maybe they can start a winter garden 60’x140′ or just come and pick the fruit when it’s ready.I can only eat so much and it’s going to go to waste. How can we learn from her? Doing! Even I as desitite will be doing some thing. How about you? Roman Prince"

Yesterday I went to his house in Cross to pick those pears with my friends, dad & mom. His tree is loaded! We picked 223.6 pounds of pears and that is just the beginning (check back for the total number harvest from just one tree). There are still so many pears to harvest. As I promised I brought some food from my food drive & Mr. Prince is helping to get that food to his neighbors in Cross that do not have enough to eat. Thank you Mr. Prince, for giving. Thank you Mr. Prince for helping. Thank you Mr. Prince, together we can make a huge difference!

I want to thank everyone out there for voting for me! I really appreciate everyone’s votes and support! Every vote helps me reach closer to my  goal of two new  vegetable gardens to feed people in need! I couldn’t do Katie’s Krops without everyone’s support! Thank you for voting daily for me!

http://www.kidswhogive.com/katie_stagliano.php

I don’t know what I used to think homelessness looked like but I know what I didn’t think it looked like. I didn’t think that homelessness looked like families just like mine but it does. I know homeless people. They are my friends and my supporters. I don’t think any of these people thought they would be homeless but so often bad things happen to good people. I have met children and their families that don’t have a place to call home. It is such a blessing that there are places like the Palmetto House where they can go, eat and live until their situation changes. Next time you see a homeless shelter, think of the people, the families just like yours. If you have any old toys, clothes, shoes, soaps and of course food and vegetables please donate them to your local shelter and you can help people, people just like you and me.

A lot of times, you don’t realize what you’ve done or what a difference you’ve made until someone tells you.  On Thursday (June 10) I had the privilege of going to Washington DC to be honored by the Sodexo Foundation and receive the STOP Hunger Grant/Scholarship.  The trip introduced me to so many amazing people. I met employees from Sodexo and four other scholarship recipients, who just like me, have a goal to end hunger. While there, Sodexo made two generous donations, one for Katie’s Krops and another for my education.  I also fit in some sight-seeing, going to the Washington, Lincoln, and World War II memorials as well as a quick trip to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. While I was in D. C I thought of some new fresh ideas and now I’m ready to start taking words into action and start on new projects.  I look forward to working with my new friends and try new strategies to fight hunger.  Thank you Sodexo it is a huge honor to be selected as a Sodexo Scholar and I promise I will make you proud!!!!