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When life gives you apples
On a cold day in December, the intoxicating smell of fresh applesauce filled the Ecumenical Senior Center as girls from the Merze Tate Travel Club teamed up with seniors for a taste of the olden days. The younger and older generations worked in teams to peel, core, slice, boil and mash the apples, and then added sugar the old fashioned way—"to taste." At the end of the day, each girl had fresh applesauce and extra apples to take home, along with some memories, a new (old) skill and a new appreciation for fresh food.
The idea for this intergenerational canning lesson was cooked up at a recent Kalamazoo Community Foundation ChangeMakers workshop. Sonya Hollins, the travel club's director, and Jaye Johnson, a counselor with Comstock Public Schools, were discussing how some valuable domestic skills are being lost in today's technology-driven, fast-food world. Johnson suggested a cross-generational project in which the older generation would pass on one of these dying arts. Hollins, who had recently learned how to make and can applesauce, proposed that idea, and the women decided to combine their Community Foundation ChangeMakers grants to make it happen. For young people who are accustomed to processed food, seeing how a dish like applesauce is made—and how simple it is to make—was eye opening.
"I didn't know you could do so many things with apples," marveled Di'Amond Moore, a fifth grader at Northglade Montessori School. "Some people say making applesauce is 'old school,' but its fun. I think it's cool that we learned how to make applesauce."
Hollins reports that it was a good experience for all ages involved. The seniors enjoyed reliving childhood memories and sharing their knowledge with the girls. "They forget they have something to teach," she says.
Gull Meadow Farms donated five bushels of apples, Honee Bear Canning donated the cans, and Great Minds of Tomorrow, a local tutoring center, acted as sponsor. The ChangeMakers grants from the Community Foundation were used to promote the event and purchase kitchen supplies.
The Merze Tate Travel Club
Sonya Hollins started the Merze Tate Travel Club two years ago with a Good Neighbor Grant from the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. Her goal is to help girls in grades 5 through 12 broaden their perspectives by exposing them to a variety of places, people and experiences.
Merze Tate was the first African American to graduate from Western Michigan University, the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Oxford, and the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in political science from Harvard University. As an ambassador with the U.S. State Department, Tate also traveled the world and donated her travel scrapbooks to WMU when she passed away in 1996. "I want to get the girls out of their comfort zone and show them there is more to the world than their own little corner of it. I want them to learn not to fear the broader world," says Hollins. "The club prepares them to live globally."
The group has traveled to locations around the state, and also has had local adventures, one of which included lunch with Dr. Eileen Wilson-Oyelaran, Kalamazoo College's first African American and female president, and a member of the Community Foundation's board of trustees.
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