Bridget Duffy

     My PALS project presentation from the spring semester, designing a community
garden/gathering space for Prince George’s Community College.

Hello! My name is Bridget Duffy, I am a rising sophomore at the University of Maryland. I am on the two year Sustainable Agriculture track at the Institute of Applied Agriculture. I am really passionate about equitable food access, and urban growing spaces, and one day I would love a career in extension! My internship is located in the Baltimore City Extension Office, with Neith Little as my mentor. 

Our main research project will be mapping food self-provisioning networks around Baltimore City. This includes both growers and fishers, who contribute to theirs and their community’s food supply. For growers, we will be able to set up interviews but a lot of them will be impromptu, knocking on doors and asking if they are interested. We will be interviewing them about their experience growing for them and their families, as well as mapping the space that they are growing in, to get a better idea for how the space is utilized. Fisher interviews will be entirely impromptu, going to popular locations and interviewing on the spot. We will also host focus groups to get a general sense of the communities in a shorter period of time.

In addition to this main project, I will also just be getting a sense of what working in the field of extension is like, attending conferences and meetings like Neith would, and learning a lot through observation. Several other employees at the office have offered support and opportunities catering to my interests. Sitting in on a Master Gardener meeting, talking with the 4H outreach workers, learning about the nutrition education system. I am interested in both the field work itself and the outreach/data entry surrounding that work, so whether I am in the office or out in the city, I am gaining experience in work I want to one day do in the future. 

I have always had an interest in informal agriculture education, so the mission of the nutrition education team and such are incredibly interesting for me. I got a late introduction to agriculture in my personal life, so youth outreach and education, especially in urban areas, is something I would love to be involved in career wise. Making fresh food not only more accessible in Healthy Food Priority Areas, but showing the community how it is produced and giving them more hands-on involvement in the process.

The kind of work going on in this office is exactly the kind of work I want to do for the rest of my life, so getting an early start on understanding the career itself, is an exciting privilege I will get to experience this summer. In a positive and motivated community like UME, I hope I can not only learn, but help make an impact.

                                    My co-intern, Nick, at one of the fishing sites we were researching near the inner
harbor, checking for fish in the water and other spots to fish.





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