Joseph Amsili is a student in Groundswell's Summer Practicum in Sustainable Farming & Local Food Systems.
by Drew Walsh, Summer Practicum Teaching Assistant
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| Joseph carries transplants destined for the field at the Ithaca Youth Farm. |
Joseph entered the world of local food in 11th grade at the Lehman Alternative Central School (LACS) as part of the Green Thumb Committee, spending his summers in the fields at the LACS garden and West Haven Farm. During 11th and 12th grades, he was involved in in growing food for the school cafeteria in the LACS garden and hydroponically. He recalls preparing lots of pesto, salsa, and other produce for the school, musing that even though slicing lots of peppers doesn't seem like much on the surface, he was also forging connections between students and their food as well as gaining a better understanding the environmental consequences of agriculture, which he finds to be extremely important and meaningful work.
After high school, Joseph spent some time abroad in Barcelona, tending gardens in a housing co-op and working with Transition Barcelona and Wiser Earth, an environmental activist networking site, in between his many hours of skateboarding. Upon returning to the Ithaca area, he interned at Stick and Stone Farm, and resumed his volunteer work with the LACS garden and Localvores club. Joseph attended American University for about a year, finding himself again working in student gardens and even began an internship at Will Allen's Growing Power, before that was cut short by a broken collarbone.
