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Meet the Farm to Early Care and Education Advisory Committee
Roberta has over four decades of experience in early childhood education. She has served as executive director of a large child care program in Portland and site manager at Mount Hood Community College Head Start. Now retired, Roberta still advocates for this work as a member of the Early Care and Education Advisory Committee.
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In early childhood, I think exposure to foods they’ve never eaten or seen or tasted is very important. But on the other side of that is serving food that is familiar to children. So it’s a delicate balance.
I have my great-grandparent’s masher…every time I use it I just think about all the generations back who have used it — people I never even met…
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One of the things that initially drew me to early childhood was a child development class at college. At the same time, Head Start was just forming, and it was a new idea to me about supporting children and families living in poverty… As it moved along, I got really interested about how children are raised, about family dynamics, and how important this early brain development period really cements how we become as adults.
I’m going to call this a movement — it’s growing, and it is more supportive, and I think Oregon is doing a bang up job.
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I wish everyone could have the experience of working in early childhood because you looked forward to going to work everyday–at least I did. And at the end of the day, it was pretty satisfying work.
Thank you to Roberta Recken for sharing her time and wisdom as a member of the Farm to Early Childhood Education Advisory Committee.
All photos by Jason Hill at Wapato Island Farm