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Karli and Jim Hagedorn founded the Farms For City Kids Foundation in 1992, based on a program they saw in England called “Farms for City Children." The programs are both designed to provide weeklong residential learning programs for children, aged 8 to 12, who live in urban areas. The philosophy behind it is that many children don’t travel outside of their home area and even fewer have the opportunity to see how different rural life is from their experience in the city. Spring Brook Farm is located in Reading, VT. It is approximately 1000 acres and is a multi-faceted farm with vegetable gardens, a herd of 100 Jerseys, horses, sheep, goats, chickens, roosters, pigs, turkeys, dogs, cats, and of course maple trees and a sugar house. Children participating in the program learn and apply math, natural sciences, and social studies during their weeklong stay. In the spring of 2008, John and Janine Putnam, farmstead cheesemakers nearby, were struggling to keep up with demand for their alpine-style cheese, Tarentaise, and decided to partner with Spring Brook Farm, setting them up as a second location for cheese production. With John Putnam’s guidance, Spring Brook built a state-of-the-art cheese house complete with custom cheese-making equipment from France, including copper vats. All the milk for Spring Brook Tarentaise comes from their herd of Jersey cows and the cheesemaking facility was designed to allow maximum viewing and learning opportunities for students participating in their educational programs. Jeremy Stephenson is the head cheesemaker at Spring Brook Farm. A mere year and a half into production, his cheese was awarded a blue ribbon in its category at the American Cheese Society’s annual judging and competition in 2009.
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