MORENCI — On a recent Saturday morning, the parking lot at Morenci’s Wakefield Park was filled with plants, vendors, and people browsing and buying. In many ways it was a typical springtime farmer’s market scene, but with one difference: This market was organized by students.

This was the second year for the Small Business Farmers Market class at Morenci Area Schools, which is open to students in sixth through 12th grades. Science teacher Grace Gierucki started the class both to give students valuable experience and to fill a community need in Morenci, which has no grocery store.

“One of my goals is to slowly start to extend it,” Gierucki said of the market. “We’d like to get it to the point where it’s at least monthly throughout the season, if not every two weeks.”

The class is in two parts. Students spend the fall on a hypothetical exercise, planning a food truck business. They start with a survey to gauge interest in various ideas, then move on to finance, record keeping, taxes, and health and safety — “a lot of the basic business stuff,” Gierucki said.

The second half of the year is devoted to planning and growing plants, such as strawberries, herbs and tomatoes, for the farmer’s market. The students choose what seeds to order and manage the budget. The plants are grown in the school’s community garden and greenhouse, and also in several classrooms.

“They grew about half of what you see here,” Gierucki said. “They have been working on growing plants since about the last week in January.”

To extend the market beyond what they can grow at school, the students line up outside vendors, which requires networking skills. They also advertise the market through signs and social media.

One sales tool they employ is making recipe cards for things like salsa and spaghetti sauce that can be made with ingredients from the market. 

“The Bulldog Salsa is our No. 1 hit,” Gierucki said. “It’s very popular in town.”

Students can opt to take the class for more than one year. This session had three students repeating the experience from last year. There were 18 students total.

The students currently sell plants for transplanting into customers’ gardens, but Gierucki said she hopes to get to the point where they can also offer fresh produce.

The proceeds from each year’s market fund the following year’s class.

Through the class, Gierucki hopes students will learn skills like communication and organization, as well as how to function independently and solve problems on their own.

“They need to do what needs to be done without me needing to give them step-by-step instructions,” she said.

“If they can leave this class and say ‘I can do hard things,’ I will be a very happy teacher.”