By Grace Wesson, Air Quality & Food Systems Coordinator, OSU Extension Service

At Oregon State University Extension Service, my daily activities can be anything from building gardens, to providing air quality literacy training to school districts, to writing grants and conference proposals. This is a far cry from my educational foundation.

After growing up in suburban California, I was ready to try something new, so I spent my undergraduate degree moving cattle through chutes, shearing sheep, and working at a lab bench. I recall many peaceful afternoons hunched over a 96-well sample plate with only the click of pipette tips to keep me company.

I really loved it, but at the same time, I wanted to pivot to a career in public health. I was interested in bringing research outside of laboratory walls. How can we make knowledge more accessible? How can communities use this knowledge to feel healthy and empowered?

Well, I arrived at Oregon State University Extension Service in 2023 with excitement, enthusiasm, and, unfortunately, what I now understand to be “imposter syndrome”. I didn’t study public health or food systems, like the other AmeriCorps members who had served in the office. How could I represent OSU Extension’s Family and Community Health program? Surely everyone would see right through me.

I still remember a lot about biology and animal agriculture from my time in Texas, but one of the most important (and hard!) lessons I brought with me to Oregon was a “soft skill”. When you are in a pen with 1000+ pound animals, there is no room for ego. We work as a team to keep each other, and the animals, safe. Out of necessity, I learned to ask questions.

During my second year of service with OSU Extension, I received training in popular education. This concept has multiple origins and influences, but is most well-known as a pedagogy framework developed by Paulo Friere as a way to resist colonial oppression in Latin America. Popular education emphasizes collaborative creation and ownership of knowledge.

This helped me to understand my role: I don’t need to have all the answers. I facilitate conversations, and I learn from the community. I use university resources to implement the programs that the community wants and co-designs. And, importantly, I change my approach in accordance with the collaborative knowledge that we build.

The food system in the Columbia River Gorge is complex, to put it simply.

Like many rural areas, our biggest industries are agriculture and tourism. Wasco and Hood River County are home to around 15,000 acres of cherry, pear, and apple orchards, which employ tens of thousands of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Hood River County is the largest producer of pears in the United States.

So much food is grown here, and yet, according to the 2015 Columbia Gorge Food Security Assessment, 1 in 3 households worry about running out of food, and 1 in 5 households actually do run out of food. Why is that? What can be done to help? And also: how can we update this data so we aren’t quoting surveys that are a decade old?

To answer these questions, my supervisor and I have been working with local partners to co-design a food security assessment. We started by (you guessed it) asking lots and lots of questions. I made a running list of every partner organization I could think of, and contacted 44 stakeholders to hear their thoughts about the project.

This resulted in more than 18 meetings with local partners, where I took notes as thoroughly as I could. It suddenly didn’t matter as much that I hadn’t studied food systems in college. The community members and stakeholders were the experts. They know their work, their community, and their local food system in a way that nobody else can. My most important job was to just listen and learn.

I have been humbled by all the people I have met and everything I have learned. There are so many parts of others’ experiences that I will never understand. All I can do is set the table, ask a question, and stay curious enough to say “Tell me more.”

About the author, Grace Wesson: Grace was raised in Southern California, and graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S. in Animal Science and a minor in Biology. While earning her undergraduate degree, Grace focused on tutoring and laboratory research. Her research examined reproductive biology in livestock species, and her capstone project explored labor issues in the dairy industry. Grace is currently serving her second year of service with the RARE AmeriCorps Program.

Interested in gaining a food systems experience of your own? Are you looking for a life changing experience in rural Oregon? Learn more about serving with the RARE AmeriCorps Program. Applications for Year 32 (2025-26) are due April 27, 2025 by 11:59pm PDT.