A Task With A Vision

LINCOLN, MA.-While many of her fellow classmates were packing their bags, loading their cars and saying goodbyes in preparation for moving to Harvard, Colleen Bangle '99 was standing in a tangle of summer squash vines bringing in the harvest.

Bangle and eight other first-years were members of one of 10 groups of the First-year Urban Program (FUP), a week-long service learning project which places first years and upperclass FUP leaders in public service projects around the Boston area.

"Not only do you get to meet other people who are [interested in service] like you, but they provide a really strong foundation in public service," said Bangle, who spent her week as a volunteer for The Food Project, a Lincoln-based group that brings together urban and suburban youth in a farm program geared at providing food for low-income communities.

While other FUP groups painted, cooked and scrubbed their way through the week, the fuppies (as they call themselves) said their experience with The Food Project allowed them to see a work of service in all of its stages.

"We actually got kind of a smorgasbord of experience," said Veronica S. Jung '97, one of the group's leaders, as she straightened from harvesting squash on Friday. "I think this project has been very unique because its been kind of a mix of the urban and the rural."

While the program was a chance to make new friends and give back to the community, fuppies said it was also hard work.

As a light mist fell Friday morning, the group worked its way through the rows of summer squash and then packed the vegetables from their morning's work in boxes to be taken into the city.

Led by the project's "grower" Martha Boyd, the group then moved to another field to harvest collard greens.

As Boyd instructed them, fuppies picked the plants and stripped their leaves for the enjoyment of hungry Boston residents.

During the four-day program, the Harvard students sold the vegetables they picked to local buyers at a farmers' market in Roxbury. The fuppies sliced them for salads at a Boston soup kitchen; they also helped renovate a vacant lot in Roxbury for planting next spring.

Although The Food Project welcomes volunteer groups such as Harvard's FUP during the spring and fall, the project's main focus is an eight-week urban/suburban program for teenagers.

Since it started in 1992, the program has won national acclaim, winning a grant from the National Commission of Youth Service Corps.

Ultimately, the mission of the project is twofold: to teach youth service and to give back to their communities.

Fuppies say this spirit has rubbed off on them this week.

"It was a really good feeling to see the end result [of the group's work]," Bangle said, describing people eating produce at the farmers' market. "There were women going five feet away and chomping into sweet corn and kids hocking into watermelons."

Although Bangle says she has volunteered before, she says even the time she spent with migrant farm-workers in California cannot compare with the complete chain of service she witnessed through working for The Food Project.

And she says this week before school has helped her to feel at home in sections of Cambridge and Boston she might otherwise never have seen.

"My view of Cambridge is probably really different [from most first-years]," she said. "I haven't seen any of the rich parts. I've only seen the poor places."

While many of the first-years in the working on The Food Project had never labored on a farm, they found one member of their class well-schooled in manual labor and good old fashioned hard work.

Ethan Thierow '99, a Lincoln resident, spent his second summer at the Food Project working as a crew leader. Upon learning that a group of his classmates would volunteer at the project, he agreed to help lead the group.

Thierow says he has already become fast friends with the FUP group and through them met his Harvard roommate, a fuppie on another program.

As he picked, Pedro Pimentel '99, who is from the Dominican Republic, reflected on what he had learned in his FUP experience.

"To apply what happens in our classes to what is going on in the real world," he said. "In high school, I felt that it was useless to go to class and study and not do anything for the community."

Naiwen D. Tu '99 and her fellow workers remembered a quote Boyd had shared with them from the book, Streets of Hope.

"A vision without a task is a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. And a task with a vision can change the world," Benjamin W. Hulse '99 recalled.

"This is kind of like a task with a vision," Tu said as she placed a plant into her crate of greens.CrimsonDougles M. PravdaMembers of the Class of 1999 who worked on a farm in Lincoln, Mass. last week pose with their leaders.

As he picked, Pedro Pimentel '99, who is from the Dominican Republic, reflected on what he had learned in his FUP experience.

"To apply what happens in our classes to what is going on in the real world," he said. "In high school, I felt that it was useless to go to class and study and not do anything for the community."

Naiwen D. Tu '99 and her fellow workers remembered a quote Boyd had shared with them from the book, Streets of Hope.

"A vision without a task is a dream. A task without a vision is drudgery. And a task with a vision can change the world," Benjamin W. Hulse '99 recalled.

"This is kind of like a task with a vision," Tu said as she placed a plant into her crate of greens.CrimsonDougles M. PravdaMembers of the Class of 1999 who worked on a farm in Lincoln, Mass. last week pose with their leaders.