Farm to Table Kids
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Christa Hein: Hey there. Welcome to the Farm Educators Roadmap. I'm Christa Hein, former nonprofit girl turned farm education entrepreneur. I've spent the last 30 years creating hands-on programs that connect people to the land, animals, and the traditions that nourish our daily lives.
If you're listening, you probably believe what I do, that farm education is needed now more than ever. Not just on rural farms, but in suburbs, cities, and everywhere in-between. In this podcast, you'll hear real stories and practical advice from farm educators all across the country, people who are creating change through their programs in creative and inspiring ways.
Whether you're dreaming about starting your first program, are already knee deep in your own farm education work, or are just curious about how others are impacting their communities through farm education, you're in the right place. [00:01:00] Let's dig in.
Christa Hein: Welcome back to the Farm Educators Roadmap. Today we're heading to Maine to meet Stephanie McDonough, a third-generation grower and the founder of Farm to Table Kids, where children learn to garden, cook, and connect with the land. From her grandfather's flower farm to her own backyard gardens. Steph's story is one of reinvention, starting with a mom's gardening class, growing into full-fledged farm camps, and rebuilding again after losing her farmland.
Through every twist, she's found creative ways to keep her mission alive, partnering with schools, restaurants, and school districts to get kids growing and eating fresh food. Steph, thanks so much for joining us.
Stephanie McDonough: Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Christa Hein: Oh, absolutely. So, you come from three generations of growers. Can you tell us a bit about your grandfather's flower farm and how that legacy shaped you?
Stephanie McDonough: Oh, I would love to. It is one of [00:02:00] my most favorite memories of all time being in the garden with my grandfather. His name was Jim McCue and he actually never got to finish high school because he had to work the farm for his family. And my family still has our family nursery called McCue's Garden Center in Massachusetts.
It started in 1933, so my grandfather started with his cousins and it's still up and running now. But back when I was a young little girl, my favorite memories were in his flower garden. When my grandfather came back from World War II, he went right back to the garden and started growing pansies, and I would go in the garden and dig up pansies with him and popped them into packs to bring to the nursery. And when I did that, he would share stories about World War II with me. He would tell me fun facts about nature and trees, and half of the stuff I'm sure was made up, but it developed such a [00:03:00] curiosity and wonder and such a special connection with nature.
He wasn't someone who told me to go outside and play. He showed me how to go outside and play. Not only did he bring me into the garden, but he also would bring me to this beautiful forest that surrounded his garden and in the forest, again, he would tell me beautiful stories and come up with songs and just show me how to connect with nature.
And to this day, the lessons he taught me with how to connect with nature still saved me a lot and guide me a lot with the decisions I make and helping me get through, you know, life's hardest times.
Christa Hein: Oh, that history is so important.
Stephanie McDonough: So, I cherish that beginning.
Christa Hein: Yeah. Yeah. So, you started your career in the world of business. What pulled you from that world into hands-on gardening and education?
Stephanie McDonough: Yeah, I got my degree from UMass Amherst in Sports Management and I was actually recruited by the NBA, the National Basketball Association to be part of their associates program. So that's where they train their upper [00:04:00] management. And so, it was such a cool job because one week out of each month you got to go to a different department to see where your strengths were within the NBA matrix.
So, I could do international marketing or finance and see which one I really liked. And that was such a cool program to be able to understand the depth and the matrix of how a big company like that works, but I quickly realized New York City was not my speed, it just wasn't for me. And so I had a great relationship with the NBA and they hooked me up with a marketing agency in Colorado because I wanted to move to the mountains.
So I did that. I moved to Colorado for a ski season, but ended up staying five years, as you do. And, oh, I loved it out there. I worked for Vail Resorts and did some more marketing there. Then I came back east and worked for Special Olympics, and then when I became a mom, I actually opened up the backyard and started going back to the land and gardening again.
Christa Hein: Nice. So I read that [00:05:00] your first step was a simple one, a weekly mom's gardening class in your backyard. What were those early days like and what did they teach you about how people connect to growing food?
Stephanie McDonough: Oh my gosh. They taught me so much. I was so surprised by those garden clubs. So as a new mom, I was very much looking for other new moms to connect with and for me, connection happens outside. So, I opened up the backyard into a one-acre farmable lot, and then I just started planting seeds and inviting community to come and play in the garden with me.
And I would have moms and dads show up with their kids. At this point, the kids were probably two to six, I would say. And they would show up and we would do a little class in the garden and then make a nature craft and always a fun little garden snack. And before I knew it, I had like 40, 50 people showing up on a Tuesday morning just to hang out in my [00:06:00] garden.
And I thought, this is strange because we live in Maine, people have access to gardens, people have access to land. Why is everyone coming here? So, I realized it wasn't just about access to land. People need to be shown how to play with nature. We need to show people and guide them through - I think a lot of times people, especially people with kids, are told to stay out of the garden.
Stay away, don't touch, walk where you step. Although I do preach watch where you step, we are all about immersion. I want kids to get in there and get their hands and knees dirty and pull the things to see what stage of growth that they're in. So, they would come to my house and we would do a little garden class.
And like I said, before I knew it, people I didn't even know were showing up. And that's when I called my friend Fred, who owns a bunch of restaurants all along Maine’s coast, and I said, there's real momentum here with this small mom's garden [00:07:00] group I have going. What would you be open to me building?
Gardens at your restaurants for the chefs, and I'll grow anything they want as long as you let me do a free garden class every week. And so that just was such a huge success and it really took off from there.
Christa Hein: So, working with the restaurants, how did that setting shape your approach to teaching families? Did it bring any new, I mean, growing for consumption through a restaurant is different than growing in your backyard. How did that change things for you?
Stephanie McDonough: So different. And I do grow wholesale as well. So even the scale of how you grow is very different. So in this phase of Farm to Table Kids, we were going from my backyard garden, which was a big acre garden with another whole pumpkin patch and sunflower patch behind it, so probably more than an acre.
And then I was switching to restaurant gardens in parking lots. So, these were going to be [00:08:00] raised bed gardens and hot asphalt parking lots. And so that's a big shift in growing itself. But then you talk about the size and the amount of quantity that you can produce for those things, and that's another limiting factor or consideration.
So those were all the topics I talked to the chefs about when we were picking out what they wanted me to grow. You know, it didn't make sense for me to grow lettuce for the restaurant because there's no way I can produce enough lettuce in those little raised beds to feed that whole restaurant. So, we would grow things really for what we thought the kids would enjoy, and then show them how it's also used in the restaurant.
So, something like if you have two cherry tomato plants, there's plenty of cherry tomatoes. You don't need more than two cherry tomato plants, no matter how much land access you have. So we would just be really mindful of things like that. And then we would grow fun things like popcorn to show kids that yes, you can have sweet corn, but then there's also [00:09:00] popcorn and you can grow that and let it cure and then pop it in a bag and see where popcorn comes off of a husk.
So, and then grow, you know, mammoth sunflower heads so that we could take the seeds out and turn them into sun butters. So we really, the chefs were so great because rather than growing at a whole, at like a mass scale. They were really into let's just grow for the community and for the kids to come and play in the garden.
And so that's what we started doing. And I remember one Tuesday I was at a garden up in Topsham Maine, and again, just raised beds in a restaurant parking lot and a bus from the local YMCA showed up with kids. And I was like, what is happening? You just came from the YMCA to this parking lot garden, and it's because they wanted to see how we played with nature.
They wanted to see how we garden with kids. What are we doing to get the kids involved. [00:10:00] So many organizations like schools or YMCAs, they do have lovely garden spaces, but they don't often have a person in place or on payroll to be able to really optimize that garden, to maximize what you can get out of it.
And so, I've become really good at that, really good at understanding what is our garden goal. Okay then, the garden should be set up this way and this format, and we're going to plant these seeds and this is what the season's going to look like. So, you can really get an idea and understanding of the yield and what your seasonality looks like.
But at the beginning when we were just growing out of the raised bed gardens at the restaurants, I was completely taken aback by just how powerful the community involvement was. It was actually so powerful that in 2015, the same year we were growing those gardens, Farm to Table Kids was acknowledged as one of the top five entrepreneurial businesses in the Portland region, which was so cool because up to that point it [00:11:00] felt like a cute little mom business I was doing with my two kids.
And it was like - cute. It felt really warm and fuzzy. But then when we were recognized with other huge companies as one of the top five entrepreneurial businesses in Portland, Maine, that was such a turning point for Farm to Table Kids.
My son was diagnosed with stage four cancer 10 days after that acknowledgement. So we went from being really, really high and shining bright to total darkness.
But you know, it's all part of the story and all part of really just staying dedicated to your passion and again, using nature to connect with nature, to put the pieces back together when we needed to.
Christa Hein: So how did the transition then come for you to start the farm camps?
Stephanie McDonough: Yeah, so when I started gardening with kids, I didn't have it in my head that this would be how I would pay the bills someday. It was at that time I was married and I was farming [00:12:00] with kids as a way to provide food for my family and as a way to provide the lifestyle that I loved so much as a child to my kids.
I wanted to be them to be just as connected with nature as I was taught and shown to be. And so I just wanted that lifestyle for them. I didn't go into this looking at it from a business perspective, but then because of my business background, when we did start to get a lot of attention and a lot of community momentum, that's when I started thinking about summer farm camp.
So when Joey was sick, we moved to Boston for two years and we essentially lived out of Boston Children's Hospital. We were there for two solid years, and during that time it was stage four cancer. I wasn't in the hospital room thinking like, gee, how can I improve Farm to Table Kids when we get out of here?
That was not on my horizon at all. Just Joey's health and my daughter Autumn’s balance were the only things I could think about. [00:13:00] And when he got better, I also knew I was going to go through a divorce. So, I was in a situation where I was in Massachusetts with my two kids who needed a lot of attention and rightfully so, and I knew I was going to be moving back to Maine.
And I would have to be able to stand on my own two feet and support myself and my kids financially. But also if you have a child coming off of stage four cancer, it's not like they can all of a sudden just go back to school and rejoin community. Like he still didn't have all of his white blood cells, like he still was very immune compromised.
So I needed to do something where I could have them by my side, and every time I would start to think about a marketing job I could do, or a school job or something, the linchpin was I needed to be with them. They needed to be with me.
And so farm camp, summer farm camp, I've always wanted to do a summer farm camp. It was always just something that was curious in the back of my head. But [00:14:00] then when push comes to shove, I think when you're put in these situations where it's like, do you want this or not? I'll always - I'll always bet on myself.
So rather than taking a job where I would have to reacclimate and not really know what the schedule's like and not know if I could bring my kids, I just created what I needed for myself at the time and to be able to take something that I love. I love farming with kids. I think - I do think everybody here on this planet has some kind of gift and some purpose, something we're supposed to do when we're here. At least I'm someone who likes to think that. And I want to know what my purpose is and why I am here. And when I garden with kids, there's just this undeniable knowing in myself that like this, this is what I'm supposed to be spending my time doing.
And so that combined with – okay, I am a business person and I can pull this off, and I [00:15:00] just went through two years of the impossible. So why not just keep the impossible going? And we moved back in February, over February vacation. I got the kids acclimated. By June, we had, you know, a whole new life.
We had, I had gone through or was still going through a divorce. I had figured out how to get the licensing and promotion and the venue for a summer farm camp. I marketed it, got families to sign up, and we launched our first summer camp that summer in June. So, it was a short window to turn it around, but like most things in life - I know you know, 'cause I listened to your story - when you're passionate about something, you have grit. And if you have grit, you have an unwavering dedication to the goal at hand.
And for me, I was like, okay, now this is how I'm going to provide for my family. This is how I'm going to stand on my own two feet and I get to do it while doing something that I love.[00:16:00]
So that's how Farm to Table Kids, the farm camp aspect came to life.
Christa Hein: Nice. Well, so you were at the location that you were at for a couple of years and then you found out that it was going to turn into a bird sanctuary and you were losing your lease. How did you navigate that big relocation and how did you find the courage to start over again?
Stephanie McDonough: Oh Christa, that was so stressful.
Christa Hein: I bet.
Stephanie McDonough: That was so heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking because we started as a little summer farm camp and then year after year we doubled, tripled our numbers. I built this gorgeous 20 by 60 cedar framed solar powered greenhouse with retractable roof and retractable sidewalls.
And I got a classroom in there and we built this huge hugelkultur garden that we called Sunflower Forest, and it grew like thousands of sunflowers and the kids made trails through there and slides. And I was offering [00:17:00] community workshops, adult work workshops like year-round programming. It was amazing.
And I went to the people, to the nonprofit board that managed the land. And quite honestly, you either want kids at a farm or you don't. And they were very much headed in the direction of a bird sanctuary for the land trust and kids and a bird sanctuary really don't go together. So I had, they also - another issue with that venue was I was capped at 20 kids a week and every summer my summer camp program would sell out in 30 minutes.
Like, it was just the community demand for farm camp was so much bigger. And so, I already knew in the back of my head I needed to find a place to grow. And so, when that happened, it was devastating, but it was also - when one door closes, another one opens. I've learned that as long as you stay dedicated and optimistic, another door [00:18:00] will open.
So, when that door closed, I was so devastated. I mean, I thought that was the end of my world for a minute. And then I was at a local fundraiser, a local agricultural fundraiser, and I got someone from Maine Coast Waldorf School came up to me and they said, hey, you know, we talk about Farm to Table Kids a lot. Would you ever consider our space as a venue for farm camp?
And I was like, well, will you let me have 50 kids instead of 20? And they were like, absolutely. So, I went over to their campus. And oh my gosh, they have an incredible forest with like 200 acres of trails and they have these three big gardens that I could plant anything I wanted into and just take over.
And they have infrastructure to be able to cook with the kids and craft the way we wanted to. So, it was such a blessing. I'm so grateful we ended up there.
Christa Hein: And so, I see you now also do Farm to Table Kids at another location as well.
Stephanie McDonough: Yep. We have a second location called [00:19:00] Frinklepod Farm, and Frinklepod Farm is an organic, certified small family farm just outside Kennebunkport. And oh my gosh, it's run by Noah and Flora and they're the best farmers in the whole wide world. But Flora reached out to me because she homeschooled her children.
She has a super active community garden where she already was offering adult workshops and programming and things like that, but she was curious. She's watched what we were doing on Instagram and she was curious about the Farm to Table Kids summer camp experience.
So we actually did our first licensing deal and I showed her, I shared with her all the curriculum, like how we create themes for each week and how we create the lesson plans for those themes, talk to her about staffing and help her get the right counselor to camper numbers and all that stuff.
So, yeah, that was our first licensing deal that we did. It was incredible. We've now partnered with Frinklepod Farm for two summers to offer a summer camp there.
Christa Hein: And [00:20:00] she found you?
Stephanie McDonough: Yeah, we knew each other from just - Maine's a small gardening community. And so we knew each other from that.
We also have kids around the same age, and we definitely knew each other from social channels. But then when we partnered together to create Farm to Table Kids at Frinklepod, we obviously became much closer
Christa Hein: I love how things just happen when they're meant to happen.
Stephanie McDonough: when they're meant to happen.
Christa Hein: So, you're also now working with schools, right?
Stephanie McDonough: Yes.
Christa Hein: Are there other partnerships? And then I'm curious how you find partnerships and how you keep those relationships healthy over time.
Stephanie McDonough: Oh my gosh. Well, partnerships these days have come to me through social media to be honest. There's a school called the Alexander Dawson School at Rainbow Ridge, and they are actually in Nevada. And so they saw me on Instagram, and they were like, hey, do you think you could do that in [00:21:00] Las Vegas and I was like, I would love to try.
So obviously the climate from Maine to Nevada is very different. We're zone 5B. They’re zone 9A, so very different growing. But everything's about soil. Everything's about soil and understanding plants.
And when I went out there to see them, they were growing a lot of spinach and lettuce, and I was like - why are we growing lettuce in the desert? So we did a complete garden overhaul at their location, really replacing everything from the soil to the seeds. And so, I've been working with them now for about three years. It's been an incredible relationship.
And I love watching their program grow because they grow so much food to support the food that goes into the cafeteria and their community. They're doing everything right. I love what they've done with their garden program. And then other partnerships. Other, other schools? Is that what you mean? Other [00:22:00] schools I work with?
Christa Hein: Yeah, just in general, other partners that you work with, whether it's schools or museums or other nonprofits.
Stephanie McDonough: So in that time where I was, where I ended at Skyline Farm, at the 60 Acre Land Trust and started at Maine Coast Waldorf School, at Maine Coast Waldorf School, that was an incredible leap to be able to go from 20 kids - hosting 20 kids a week to 40 to 50 kids a week. When I made that jump, I thought to myself, I need to systemize everything I'm doing.
I am someone who, classic farmer, I'm more of a type B person, so organization isn't my strong suit. But I knew that to be able to take Farm to Table Kids to the level that I wanted it to grow, I needed to be organized. I needed to be systemized. I needed to be able to show my staff exactly how I wanted things done, because I can't be [00:23:00] everywhere at once, certainly not at two locations.
And so, I started to create lesson plans for my own staff activities for my own staff. And these activities are little one-page tiles that I can text to them. So I can say, this is today's craft recipe and garden activity. They get texted a little tile of exactly how to do it, and then everything has a YouTube video that goes along with it.
So, all of my activities also have like a two or three minute YouTube video to show my camp counselors. This is how you do the craft with the kids. Also, to be able to not only just welcome more kids, I had to train more staff. And so again, that's why I really started to create this Farm to Table Kids staff training curriculum, which has now evolved into a Farm to Table Kids partnership curriculum.
Because what I realized was as I'm creating all these systems to train my new staff, to keep the quality and [00:24:00] standard that I want Farm to Table Kids to be at, I've created this huge catalog or library of resources that I then got to share with FrinklepodFarm to say, hey, this is how I train my people. This is what we do. This is if you have X amount of kids, this is what your day schedule should look like. If you have 50 kids, this is what your day schedule should look like. And then this is where I plug in the different activities, and this is a book of the activities that we have.
I have a book of the activities as well as like textable files that you can send to your staff every morning. So, I was showing her all those things and sure enough, she took it and ran with it, and it worked great for her. So after doing that and sharing it with the Alexander Dawson School in Vegas, I'm like, this works, this is great.
And it's meant the lessons I'm sharing with my staff at the beginning of each farm camp day, it's not your traditional teacher lesson plan. It's not like a word doc. It's a simple one little tile that shows you what to do with a [00:25:00] companion video. So, it worked really well in all of those different settings. At my farm camp, at FrinklepodFarm, at the Alexander Dawson School.
And then for years now, probably like at least five years, I've been creating kids garden content with Coast of Maine Organic Products. They create or they sell like soil and compost and garden amendments and things like that.
They are a national brand, but they're not everywhere. They're definitely trying to be more national. So we create educational guided content for kids, and we've been doing that for about five years now and that's been great. Yeah.
Christa Hein: So, I wanted to get into the nitty gritty a little bit more of your business and ask about your business structure, because I know that some of our listeners are just starting out and considering what type of format would work best for them. I see on your website that Farm to Table Kids began as a nonprofit, but you've since moved away from that model.
So I'm [00:26:00] curious, what made you leave the nonprofit world and what business structure did you find that worked better for you?
Stephanie McDonough: Great question, and that was a hard decision when I became a 501C3 nonprofit. It was right after we moved back from Joey's treatment. So in 2017, when I call that like our 2.0 era, when we had Farm Table Kids summer camp edition, we did set it up as a nonprofit and I am a terrible grant writer apparently. Because I know grant writing is like speaking another language, and I guess it's one I don't speak.
I thought I would be really good at grant writing because I used to work for the Special Olympics of Massachusetts and I had to write so many grants for them, and I was good at it, but I, for whatever reason, I could never land a grant for Farm to Table Kids.
And so when COVID hit and I couldn't offer programming for a [00:27:00] year, I had to shift our garden. Our garden at the time was at the 60-acre Land Trust. I had just over an acre and a half of garden in production that I switched from experiential learning to wholesale operation. Then I also opened the world's cutest farm stand. It was like so cute.
And instead of doing experiential learning that year, I did a wholesale operation with a farm store. And then when all of that was happening and I knew I needed to expand the Farm to Table Kids base from 20 kids a week to like, hopefully 50 kids a week, I started looking at other places or opening up to other places, and that's where Maine Coast Waldorf School came in and filled that spot.
Christa Hein: And so now you're a private LLC. Is that the structure you have?
Stephanie McDonough: Yep. And so, I dissolved the 501C3 during COVID because I just couldn't be as nimble and flexible as I needed to be. So when I [00:28:00] dissolved that, I became an LLC. And so now Farm Table Kids is an LLC, and honestly, with that it's, it's better for me personally. Accounting's easier, you know, a lot of things are easier.
I needed to be able to move fast and make quick decisions, and I couldn't always do that when I had to get the blessing of a board.
Christa Hein: Yep. So you've shown such resilience through land losses and restarts. What advice would you give to other farm educators who are struggling with change or uncertainty?
Stephanie McDonough: Oh my gosh, so much because I've been through a lot of it. We've only talked about, I think half the transitions I've been through. We, you know, this started as I became a new mom and then it went dark for a minute when my son was sick. And then it came back to life in a bigger and better summer camp experience way.
As I became a single mom, and then for about six years [00:29:00] I was trying to blend a family with a new partner. And in that time, Farm to Table Kids was almost a distraction. Because I was trying really hard to put that relationship as the focus to make that work. And that was during COVID too, where I, for a year, I didn't do the experiential learning and I got to just see what it felt like to kind of give Farm Table kids a backseat and try to make this relationship work.
But I also knew I couldn't let go of Farm to Table Kids because if the relationship didn't work, that is how I provide for my family. And so ultimately that relationship did not work. And when I saw that coming to an end, I thought to myself, oh my gosh, well, summer camp alone isn't going to provide for my family in today's economy.
I also live in the, one of the most affluent towns in the state, and I went to the state at the time and I said, hey, I can't really afford anything in our neighborhood. Can I start working at the school full-time to be [00:30:00] able to keep my kids in the district? And so, I started working at the school full-time in the special ed department while also doing summer camp.
And at that time I also got a call from (Mism?) education and they provide free learning resources to educators throughout the country and they saw some of my stuff on Instagram and they said, hey, can you show us more of what you've got? And I sat down at my computer to start writing curriculum and it just poured out of me.
I was like, oh my God. I love this. I love writing curriculum. I have so much to say. I have this marketing background I love, I love putting this together. And so I found a whole new aspect of garden education that who knew? Like I didn't even know. I love it. And not only do I love it, but I have this library of information in my head that I'm dying to get on pages and put in front of other educators.
[00:31:00] So I, you know, if you are someone who is going through it right now and you're like, I don't know how to make this work - stick with it. Because here's what you need to do. Go to nature. Go either in a walk on a forest, or go to the beach, or go to your garden or just go outside with your shoes off and walk in the grass and just get quiet with yourself and listen to your inner self and nature will give you the path and the energy to keep going.
And I know that because that is what has happened to me throughout my whole journey. When my son was sick when I went through divorce, when I was ending this six year relationship that really was supposed to work and then having to stand on my own two feet again in this economy, but this time with a full-time job with two kids by my side and a farm camp program that I started as a cute little hobby when my kids were young. [00:32:00]
But every time where I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, this mountain seems too big, this one's too high. It's not. You just have to go to nature. Reconnect with yourself. Nature will give you everything that you need in terms of direction and energy to find your path.
Just stick with it. I say always bet on yourself. I will always bet on myself. One of the things I noticed when I was working for marketing agencies, I was working for this incredible agency. I got to see the whole country by traveling the NASCAR circuit and the PGA tour. Like it was such a cool job, but I realized I only have one speed. I only give 110%. I, I don't have that mentality of like, well, I'm only getting paid this. I'm only gonna give this, like, I only know how to give a hundred percent of myself. And I realized, if that's how I operate, why would I give a hundred percent of myself to someone else's dream?
What's my dream? And so when Joey got sick and then he got well, and I [00:33:00] had to have that come to Jesus with myself of like, okay, girl, how are you gonna do this? I was just, I'm betting on myself. I, I know what my dream is. I feel it. I'm going to have to like, just take the leap and hope my angels catch me, and they've just been flying me away by my side ever since.
Christa Hein: Such beautiful advice. Your story is such a great reminder that farm education isn't tied to just one piece of land. It's rooted in creativity and heart, and you've also shown us that when we follow our calling, even a backyard can become a classroom full of wonder.
Steph, where can people connect with you online and follow along with you and Farm to Table Kids?
Stephanie McDonough: Yes, please go to our website. It is FarmtoTableKids.org. You can find us on all social media channels, but primarily Instagram and Facebook at Farm to Table Kids. I also have another channel called Farmer Steph, and that's where I share more of my personal kind of single mom journeys and [00:34:00] stuff like that, but Farm to Table Kids on social media and FarmtoTableKids.org.
Christa Hein: Ah, awesome. Steph, thank you so much for sharing your incredible story with us.
Stephanie McDonough: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I love this community and I'm thrilled to be a part of it.
Christa Hein: Absolutely. To our listeners, if you've been holding back because your space or situation isn't perfect, let Steph’s story remind you that you can start right where you are -a single raised bed, a school courtyard or a handful of kids can be the start of something lasting.
If this episode inspired you, please follow the podcast and leave a review. It really helps others find these stories. Until next time, keep teaching, keep growing, and keep connecting people to the land.
Christa Hein: Hey farm educators. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Before you go, I've got something special for you. If you're ready to build a farm education program that people are excited to book, grab my free guide, Five Simple Steps [00:35:00] to Growing an In-Demand Farm Education Program. It's packed with the same steps I used to grow my own farm education business.
It'll help you get noticed, attract clients, and make an impact. Just head over to www.farmeducatorsroadmap.com/fivesimplesteps to get your free copy. It's quick, easy, and will make your programs irresistible. I can't wait to see what you create. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
