Hi! This is Molly, one of the Teva support staff members. This past Sunday, the Topsy Turvy bus was in my hometown working with the Mitzvah Garden in Overland Park, Kansas. The Mitzvah Garden is a community garden that recruits volunteers to garden and harvest produce for local food banks and other organizations.
The bus tour was part of the first ever “Tour de Farm”, a bike ride starting and ending at the garden and touring through a few parks as rest stops on the route. The Topsy Turvy bus was set up at one of the rest stops, and the educators aboard met the people on the bike ride and gave tours of the bus. The educators hung out with the riders at the rest stop, baking cookies in their solar oven and talking about using the elements as fuel.
The educators also met the riders at the end, with a new element in tow – a bicycle powered blender, to showcase the expanse possible uses for a bicycle. The bike blender operates on the power generated by a person pedaling a bike attached to it. Participants of the Tour de Farm were excited to try out the bike and sample the smoothies being made by it. Rae, a summer intern for the Mitzvah Garden, noted that this was a highlight, because “the Topsy Turvy bus could show off what they had, and we could run up to the garden and put stuff in the smoothies. We had spinach and mint [in them].”
Some of the riders, biking smoothies into existence with an array of ingredients to choose from!
Rae was also happy to spend more time with the educators in the garden, which they all said was awesome, especially in its abundance. “Sonia walked around the garden and showed me all kinds of edible weeds that you can put in smoothies and on salads! I spend a lot of time in the garden and I didn’t know about them,” said Rae.
Benji with new friends in Kansas appreciating their harvest.
I’m sad that I couldn’t be at the Tour de Farm, but I’m excited to keep following the tour educators on their thrilling adventure, and I can’t wait to see what the open road has in store for them next!
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