5 post-secondary students
1 truck driver
4 Pepper plants
2 Tomato plants
1 province
3 states
70+ events
200+ hour on the road
Endless amounts of laughter, carpool karaoke, memories, and a whole
lot of talking.
What a summer! The Greenhouse Education Center (GEC) summer tour has officially come to an end. As you can imagine, I am both excited to go back to school to continue my studies, and sad to not be around my GEC family 24/7. Although I am sad, I am extremely grateful for the wonderful lessons that I’ve learned from being a part of the NatureFresh™ Family this summer. The 10 main lessons I learned from the GEC were:
- Communication skills are crucial in life. Being able to talk with people of all different backgrounds really teaches you to adapt while having a conversation. I found this skill extremely helpful while talking to older generations who had not grown up around greenhouses. It was often clear that some people embraced the change more than others!
- Not everyone is open to change. For the most part, 99% of people were excited about what we were doing with the GEC and how our greenhouses work. However, we did come across a few people who challenged us with hard questions and different opinions. As a team, we worked hard to not let those people bring down the mood, and in the end, we understood that people have different opinions and that is okay.
- Eating State Fair food for 2 meals a day for 4 days straight is not as great as it sounds.
- Having different personalities on a team can be challenging at times, but we found a way to be one big happy family.
- We visited so many retail stores this season, including Loblaws, Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Heinen’s. But I think my absolute favorite was Wegmans – it may be the coolest store of all time (*cough cough* Mr. Trudeau, we should jump on this bandwagon).
- NatureFresh™ Snacking Tomato containers work great as Frisbees.
- Drinking LOTS of water on hot days is actually as important as your mom says. (Shhhh – don’t tell her I said that)!
- Singing the Mamma Mia soundtracks at the top of your lungs makes a car ride go by much quicker.
- I have confirmed I am not actually a pleasant human being until at least 9 AM (sorry team).
- I have a much greater respect for people in the agriculture business and a greater understanding of what really goes on behind those big glass walls – it is so much more technical than I had ever thought.
As you can see, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from this summer that I will forever carry with me – I will be forever grateful for the opportunities that the GEC presented me!
