BARRETT, Minn. — When Eric Sawatzke came to West Central Area High School in 2017, he was teaching about plants using cardboard cutouts.
“Here we are in the middle of farm country, talking to a bunch of farm kids that has seen this stuff all their life and he’s having to use, you know, like a puppet show,” said Sue Kulbiek, a member of the Lions Club in Elbow Lake, one of the towns in the West Central Area School District.
Things have changed radically in the years since, with a grant from the Lions Clubs International Foundation, written by Kulbiek, that will help bring a $350,000 greenhouse to the school campus by the end of the summer of 2022.
That will mean Sawatze will be able to teach the basics of agronomy using live plants. For example, he says, the school can germinate the seeds of weeds that would be common in the corn, soybean and sugarbeet fields in western Minnesota, so that students can identify them on the farm.
Students also will be able to work toward GAP certification for handling fresh produce. GAP is a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that stands for Good Agricultural Practices.
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Providing fresh produce to food pantries in Grant County is what got the Lions Club involved in the West Central Area project and has brought new members into the school's FFA program.
The school started with smaller scale projects — a shed and a tower to grow garden produce using hydroponics under artificial light.
Kaitlyn Hansen and Maddie Nadgwick are new to FFA as seniors after becoming interested in the "grow shed."
"It's more interesting and more complicated than I would have thought," Hansen said. The students are responsible for checking things like the pH and nutrient levels in the water, fertilizing periodically, harvesting the produce and starting new seedlings.
Alexa Blume is a sophomore in a farming family but being in charge of the hydroponic grow tower has helped her see new opportunities.
"This has opened up my eyes to this whole other world of not only hydroponics but also the ag community and how versatile and broad it is," Blume said.
Sawatzke has opened a lot of eyes in the community, after starting a push in 2019 to go after some grants to ramp up the ag programs at WCA.
It was during a community meeting that he caught the ear of Lions Club members who then approached Sawatzke about growing food for the food pantries.
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Kulbeik said the food pantries in Grant County are well stocked but providing fresh produce is always a challenge, especially in the winter.
Kulbeik submitted a grant application for $100,000. Meanwhile, there was an effort to raise money from local businesses, farmers and other groups to pay for the rest of the project.
Kulbeik said one of the things that impressed the Lions Clubs International Foundation was the project was supported by six Lions Clubs in the area.
Kulbeik said Sawatzke had his students make the presentations on the benefits of the greenhouse project.
"They did such a great job because he showed them how," Kulbeik said.
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed the process down somewhat but now construction on the 32-foot by 60-foot greenhouse is scheduled to start in June and will be ready before the next school year starts.
Meanwhile, the wheels are in motion on still another project. West Central Area is partnering with nearby Ashby High School on another grant-funded project through West Central Initiative that would bring a food preparation program to both schools, including a meat cutting program, partnering with some college programs.
Sawatzke said the goal is to give students the chance to try out butchering while they are still in high school.
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"A chance that most (students) don't get because butchering is a difficult one to be able to get students to be working in," Sawatze said.
Kulbeik gives a lot of credit to Sawatzke, who was inducted into the FFA Hall of Fame in 2021.
"He is one of the best teachers I have seen in action," Kulbeik said.
