What are young people thinking about in Jefferson County?

Food.

But we’re not talking about just any young people here, and they’re not talking about pizza.

Instead, Brainstorm for Education – a group of unique 18 high-school-age students engaged with independent teacher Jonathan Safir – is focused on Jefferson County’s food-growing network and the supply chain that provides food to local tables.

To that end, they invited nine presenters engaged in local foods to a seminar and discussion on Monday, June 27, and learned much more about what is going on in local fields, gardens, the sea and on dining tables.

The Brainstorm students, most of them from Port Townsend High School, have created their own curriculum around topics of local interest. The local food chain is their first foray. The program is not officially affiliated with any school, but the students seek to gain credit for their work through the school system. The first phase of work is field research, to be followed in the fall by intensive interviews, work with mentors, and publication of results in the form of a website or book.

Speakers included longtime Chimacum farmer Nancy Edgerton, Chimacum Corner Farmstand forager Heidi Eisenhour, Johnpaul Davies of Key City Fish, Matt Day of Mt. Townsend Creamery, and Seth Rolland of Quimper Community Harvest, among others. The speakers laid out their own experiences with local food production and supply, and painted a picture of challenges ahead if the community should seek to become more self-reliant.

Edgerton described her own personal evolution with food, which began with an attitude of not having enough, and has evolved over two decades of active growing into an ethic of trying to tamp down excessive desire and simply doing with less. She said her family is able to provide almost 80 percent of their food needs from the local land, but there are still needs for which supplies are brought in from distant places.

Sarah Spaeth of the Jefferson Land Trust noted that the Land Trust is devoted to ways of sustaining farmland for future generations through a variety of tools. She encouraged the young people to get involved in the Land Trust.

Eisenhour, a former director of the Land Trust who now finds food for the Chimacum Corner Farmstand, presented an algorithm that demonstrates how the farm-stand staff goes about selecting what is sold in the store. The greatest emphasis is placed on food that is foraged from the wild or locally grown and that is of the right quality and price. The formula also makes it possible for farm-stand staff to work with growers and vendors to ensure their products come closer to what the farm stand seeks to carry and promote. “We are committed to local food, but must diversify to generate traffic,” she said.

Eisenhour added that the farm stand has now grown to include 16 jobs.

Johnpaul Davies buys fish and other seafood from regional fishermen, then sells it wholesale to regional stores and restaurants – including his own Port Townsend outlet, Key City Fish. He also runs the Castle Key restaurant at Manresa Castle.

Davies explained that he purchases seafood from tribal fisherman on the Olympic Peninsula’s West End, but also imports some seafood and meat from far corners of the planet, such as lamb from New Zealand and prawns from Indonesia. He runs a fleet of trucks and noted the objective of keeping those trucks full both coming and going, if possible. The rising price of oil and concerns about peak petroleum would have a big impact on his business, he said.

Matt Day of Mt. Townsend Creamery gave insight into the challenges of launching a creamery in Port Townsend, describing the growing pains of the young business over the past handful of years, which included trying to make too many varieties of cheese from a single batch of milk. The company has had to expand in order to keep up with demand and make a more efficient use of batches and equipment, he said.

“We weren’t planning to make as much cheese as it turned out we needed to make to survive,” he said. Now the creamery is looking at a major expansion to the historic Brown dairy farm in Chimacum.

Day reflected on the substantial growth of the artisan farm movement in Washington, with many new farms sprouting up in Jefferson County.

“When we started, there were seven cheesemakers in Washington,” he said. “Now, there are over 25.”

Seth Rolland spoke about the Quimper Community Harvest movement, which gathers fruit, vegetables and berries that are growing wild or on trees and bushes that are not regularly harvested. The harvest group goes out to pick apples, pears, berries or other free food to ensure it is used to feed locals.

The first year of the effort, he said, produced more than 5,000 pounds of food, much of it fruit. More information is available at

L2020.org, under “Food Resiliency.”

Judith Alexander talked about getting community gardens started in Port Townsend. Currently, there are 25 such gardens. “You don’t need to have all the skills yourself,” she said.

The Brainstorm students videotaped the presentations and may make the material into a documentary. More information about Brainstorm for Education is available at their website,

brainstormforeducation.com.