Meet Cassidy Hough
Meet
Cassidy
Hough
FoodCorps Service Member
As a FoodCorps Service member, Cassidy is working in several ways to expand the culture of healthy food in her assigned school, Alanson Public Schools. The tiny district about 10 miles northeast of Petoskey has just 200 students total from kindergarten through 12th grade and is in its fourth year of hosting FoodCorps instruction.
Cassidy has been busy putting together a range of lessons for both indoor and outdoor instruction, covering topics such as agriculture, nutrition, and cooking. One of the most rewarding aspects of her job is working with local Indigenous tribal citizens to develop classroom instruction related to their culture. Alanson has a higher than average Indigenous student population, 17%, so the content is especially relevant to the students individually and the culture of the school more broadly.
Cassidy is also in charge of Alanson’s garden, not only tending it, but also helping the school make the garden part of the educational curriculum. “We planted garlic with the kindergartners and they all loved it,” she says. “It was the best day ever!” Cassidy did not grow up in a farming family, but during Covid she took a semester off to work at an organic farm in Virginia that taught her farming skills and it was a job she came to love. “Farming is the hardest work I’ve ever done, but it’s the best work I’ve ever done. It’s so rewarding,” she says.