Perseverance & Gratification - Matthew
I’m Matthew, and over the last 8 weeks, I’ve been a member of the Youth Leaders in Agriculture.
For some background, I’m a 17-year-old going into my Senior year of high school, and this has been my very first job experience. I found this job through one of my teachers. He’s not an agriculture teacher though, as one might have expected. He just received an email one day and then asked if anybody was interested in getting a job over the summer, and I said yes.
I went into this job excited to meet people, and learn about this lifestyle and what it takes to be a farmer. As of writing this now, I’m coming up on my final day. This post is going to detail my experiences, and what this job meant to me.
From the very beginning, I knew this job was going to be physically intensive, that was a given. Even with this prior knowledge, I wasn't expecting the challenge that some of these days brought. That isn’t to say that I hated my time here, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. This job, and the people I worked with taught me so much about what it means to work as a team. Much more than any class could.
Near the beginning we started out slow. Most of the first day was just getting to know the squad that I was going to be working with for the majority of the summer. We slowly built up to working hard in the heat for hours and hours. Of course the difficulty was undercut by water breaks, but I can’t stress enough how challenging it was to persevere through the hardships. I learned what it meant to put my all into something, and work through the challenge, and heat. Not only did the work strengthen my body, but it also strengthened my mind. It gave a greater sense of value to the days I had off. It even helped me appreciate the breaks that we got in between hours. The difference between our home farm, and the alternate locations we attended allowed me to appreciate other farms, as well as Project GROWS.
Some of my best memories were from going out and helping in the community. My favorite part of the work was seeing what all of our effort culminated in. Spending time around families that were in need of the services that we provided felt rewarding on its own. I treasured the time we spent harvesting. These days were rare, but amazing. There’s something so gratifying about unearthing the crops that you’ve spent weeks protecting and nurturing. There’s nothing else really like it. In conclusion, the work and time I dedicated all paid off. This was time well spent, investing in my future.