Grand Valley State University’s Farm Club and the Office of Sustainability recently hosted their annual Harvest Party at the Sustainable Agriculture Project. 

The Sustainable Agriculture Project (SAP) is a project that started off with students that wanted space to have a community garden. After fourteen years, the project is now up to 4-to-5 acres of various gardens, fields, hoop houses and a community partner called New City neighbors. 

“It’s a student-driven place, I think the special thing about the SAP is that you can come and study your own major here, so you don’t have to be a biology, NRM or biology major,” said Yumiko Jakobcic, the Director of Sustainability. 

The Harvest Party took place on Oct. 7 and celebrated the recent gatherings of ripe crops from the field. Other organizations that took part in the Harvest Party were the GVSU Beekeepers, the Student Environmental Coalition, the Soil and Water Conservation Study and the Farm Club. 

“So things are winding down at the farm, we’re not gonna be able to harvest much longer, so we just try to kind of come and have a community together,” Jakobcic said. 

The Harvest Party was a big event with a turnout of 50 to 60 people in support of the Farm Club. Farm Club interns, other students and friends were playing yard games, going on the self-guided tours and eating the food provided. 

“The Harvest Party has been a long-standing tradition with the farm,” said farm manager and educator Michael Hinkle who oversees the farm. “The counting contest, the chili contest, all of this is organized by members.”

The Harvest Party is also a way SAP introduces students to all they do. The organization has various internships and volunteer opportunities for interested students. 

“We hire interns on a semester-by-semester basis or farm crew members who usually work the whole growing season,” Hinkle said. “Right now we got a couple of composting interns, a couple of food security interns and some interns working on the wetland buffer projects”

Jacob Torah, the president of the farm club, gave a small speech to thank everyone for coming and mention some of the SAP’s hopes for the future of the organization.

“I like to see the place full,” Torah said. “It’s a nice relaxing time to see everybody who respects the space. It’s your farm too, come out and enjoy it…We’re hoping to get a classroom on campus and kind of start hopefully making Grand Valley in my dream, my vision, kind of like a hub for sustainable agriculture, regenerative agriculture.”