EduCulture in the News

On March 27, 2022, The Seattle Times published a series of stories about the Japanese American Exclusion during WWII on the 80th Anniversary of Executive Order 9066. Reporter Jackie Varriano wrote a feature story on one of our hero’s, Akio Suyematsu. EduCulture’s Jon Garfunkel assisted with research for this article.

Click here to read: Meet Bainbridge Island’s last Japanese American farmer  Suyematsu Farm wasn’t the first Japanese American farm or the largest, but Akio Suyematsu is known as the last Japanese American farmer on Bainbridge Island.  

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Through Eating, Sharing, and Studying Food We Can Build Sustainable Communities The Seed Field Podcast, Antioch University, November 3, 2021, Episode S2E5

Do you know where your food comes from? Whether it is the food we are getting at a grocery store, farmer’s market, restaurant, or our backyard, understanding the way food is produced and the larger systems it is a part of can help us fight for more sustainable and equitable access to food. Scholar and dedicated food educator Jon Garfunkel talks with guest host Mair Allen about the ways that acts like reclaiming public spaces for gardening, having conversations with local food providers, and volunteering to help to feed your community can help us understand and correct problems in the food systems we currently depend on—both locally and globally.

Listen to the Podcast at: https://seedfield.antioch.edu/2021/s2e5-through-eating-sharing-and-studying-food-we-can-build-sustainable-communities/

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Growth Experience // Educulture Honors Yesterday and Teaches for Tomorrow

Check out the story about EduCulture featured in the Summer 2018 issue of Bainbridge Island Magazine

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Click on the player below or here to listen to a July 26, 2014 podcast on
Bainbridge Community Radio about the work of EduCulture.
 

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Read about our Only What We Can Carry Project in the News

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EduCulture Stole My Heart…then Gave Me Strawberries

Click here to read Spring Courtright’s Story on her visit with an EduCulture Field Class in her Kitsap Sun Blog, June 13, 2014

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Global Source receives Wall of Fame Award for Human Rights Education

L-R: GSE Board Member Ed Mikel, Jon Garfunkel, KCCHR Board Members Tom Fairchild & Rob Purser

December 2012… Global Source Founder and Managing Director, Jon Garfunkel, was presented with a lifetime achievement award by the Kitsap County Council for Human Rights and Kitsap County Commissioners for Global Source’s leadership in local human rights and social justice education in our region. Contributions to the educational community from our EduCulture and Only What We Can Carry projects were cited during the presentation.  This special honor was received on behalf of the entire learning organization, and serves as a valuable affirmation that our work is making a difference.  Click here for more information about the award.

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Islanders turn out to honor memory of influential farmer Special to the Kitsap Sun, August 19, 2012 BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Akio Suyematsu is gone, but his legacy flourishes on Day Road. His influence on both land and people was evident Sunday, as more than 150 islanders paid final respects to the legendary Bainbridge farmer during a memorial at Suyematsu Farms. (more)

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Carrying a Message Bainbridge Island Review, March 22, 2012 What would you carry with you – if you only had six days to pack a bag for yourself and your family, headed to a remote location, for an unknown period of time? What would you bring?  (click here to read the full story)

Click Here for a video presentation & tour on the Suyematsu Family from OWWCC & EduCulture Director Jon Garfunkel on the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of the Japanese American Exclusion on Bainbridge Island, WA

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Community Recognition & Community Leadership Award

Global Source and Bainbridge Island School District leaders at the WASA Community Awards. L-R: Katy Curtis, Jon Garfunkel, Mary Woodward (OWWCC Board) , Kay Nakao (OWWCC Board), Julie Goldsmith (BISD Asst Superintendent), Pam Keyes (BISD Director of Communications), and Faith Chapel (BISD Superintendent)

2011 WASA Community Awards
L-R: Katy Curtis, Jon Garfunkel, Mary Woodward (OWWCC Board) , Kay Nakao (OWWCC Board), Julie Goldsmith (BISD Asst Superintendent), Pam Keyes (BISD Director of Communications), and Faith Chapel (BISD Superintendent)

May 2011…Global Source Education was honored by the Bainbridge Island School District with a Community Recognition Award and presented the Community Leadership Award by the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) for “outstanding community leadership and contributions to the improvement of public education.” We are grateful for such meaningful recognition of our two locally grown projects centered on Bainbridge Island: EduCulture and Only What We Can Carry. May 2011…Global Source Education was honored by the Bainbridge Island School District with a Community Recognition Award and presented the Community Leadership Award by the Washington Association of School Administrators (WASA) for “outstanding community leadership and contributions to the improvement of public education.” We are grateful for such meaningful recognition of our two locally grown projects centered on Bainbridge Island: EduCulture and Only What We Can Carry.

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EduCulture Provides Real Food For Thought Bainbridge Is. School District, Fall 2011 Newsletter In Fall 2011, EduCulture Founder, Jon Garfunkel, and BISD Food Service Director, Patty Rounsley, were honored by Bainbridge Is. School District as “Stars in Our School” for their work in Farm-School & Bite of Bainbridge programs.  Click here for the story: BISD Stars in School Fall 2011

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“Digging in dirt is good for students,” Letters to the Editor, Bainbridge Island Review, October 15, 2010 “My grandmother was a lunch lady. In fact she ran the entire cafeteria for the Port Townsend School District, where I grew up. This was in the ‘70s and, come to learn now, Grandma was ahead of her time. She made homemade baking-powder biscuits, real baked chicken and mashed potatoes with real spuds, not from a box…(More)

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“Students get a ‘Taste of Bainbridge’,” Bainbridge Island Review, October 7, 2010 A project five years in the making came to fruition this week as the “Taste of Bainbridge” kicked off in the Bainbridge Island School District. Students district wide got a chance to eat produce from local farms in their school lunches that was planted, cultivated and harvested by students…(More)

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“Food Grown for Kids, by Kids Could Become Staple of Kitsap Lunch Rooms,” Kitsap Sun, June 18, 2010 As the local food movement grows, schoolyard gardens are becoming nearly as ubiquitous in Washington public schools as, well, standardized tests. So it only makes sense that some of the homegrown grub makes it on to the lunch line…(More)

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Making Locally Grown History with Edible Education Project at Morales Farm June 8, 2010, Bainbridge Island, WA This spring, through a new pilot project in edible education, a group of Bainbridge Island farmers, educators and students will be seeding some locally grown history.  For the first time on Bainbridge Island, publically owned farmland is being used in service to public education to create public produce that will be distributed to the school lunch program starting this fall…(More)

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“Farming’s future is in their hands,”  Bainbridge Island Review, June 20, 2009

More students are participating in hands-on, farm-based education. With their fingers gingerly wrapped around stems of garlic, students of Peggy Koivu’s first- and second-grade class slowly pulled soil-covered bulbs from the ground, releasing their distinctive aroma into the air…(More)

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“Day Road Farms Show Bainbridge Educators Sustainable Lessons” Bainbridge Island Review, August 2008

Under the tutelage of Bainbridge farmers and craftsmen, teachers became pupils at Day Road farms last week…(More)

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View Current and Past EduCulture Newsletters

Click here to read about news about Only What We Can Carry Project

Recent Posts

Akio Suyematsu Finalist for Renaming Wilkes School

In Fall 2022, the Bainbridge Island School District began the process of renaming the Captain Charles Wilkes Elementary School. This week, the school district Renaming Committee announced that Akio Suyematsu Elementary was one of three final names, from 89 that were submitted to the School Board, who will select the new name of the school on March 30, 2023.

Akio Suyematsu (1921-2012) was born, raised, and educated on Bainbridge Island.  He was an Island resident his entire life, except for the years of Japanese American exclusion, and his service in the United States Army (1942-47). Akio Suyematsu was born on the north end of Bainbridge Island, and spent his formative years living on the current site of Wilkes Elementary, which his family leased and farmed from approximately 1922-1930. (The Washington Alien Land Bill of 1921 prohibited non-white immigrants from buying or owning land.)   From 1928-2012, Akio lived and farmed on the forty-acre property his family purchased neighboring the current site of Wilkes Elementary. 

From the late 1920’s-1942, Akio attended Olympic Grade School, Lincoln School, and Bainbridge High School.  At BHS, Akio was a star baseball player for all four years, and a letterman for three years.  He excelled in building trades courses under the tutelage of Mr. Morley, which had a direct influence on his professional life as a farmer and becoming a jack of all trades. Akio was in the Class of 1942, and one of thirteen Japanese American BHS Students to graduate while exiled and incarcerated at Manzanar concentration camp in California.

During WWII, the Suyematsu Family were incarcerated in the Manzanar and Minidoka concentration camps.  In 1943, Akio was drafted by the U.S. Army, and served in Europe at the end of the war.  In 1947, he returned to Bainbridge Island and helped his family reclaim their farm and livelihoods.  The Suyematsus were one of the few Japanese American families to carry on with farming on Bainbridge Island after returning from exile.  

Today, the forty acres of Suyematsu Family Farm is one of the oldest, continuously farmed working landscapes in the region, and the largest production farm in Kitsap County.  It is the hub of our Island’s farming community and a treasured and iconic cultural asset.  Since the period of Japanese American Exclusion, Suyematsu Family Farm has become one of the most inclusive places on Bainbridge Island.  The farm has become an established historic and cultural site for teaching and learning about the Japanese American experience, and a living bookend to the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Memorial. 

From 2006-2019, Suyematsu Farm served as an outdoor classroom for Wilkes Elementary, had vibrant farm-school partnership with Suyematsu Farm integrated into the K-4 curriculum, with every class coming to the farm up to four times a year.  A dedicated path was built for Wilkes students to walk to and from the farm.  Wilkes teachers spoke at Akio’s Celebration of Life.

In 2011, Akio Suyematsu became the first local farmer, and alumnus, to have a contract with BISD food program, purchasing 300 pounds of Suyematsu Farm raspberries each year for a yogurt & granola parfait, served to Wilkes students and others throughout the school year- making Suyematsu Farm and Wilkes Elementary one of the closest farm to school relationships in the region.

Click here for more information from the Bainbridge Island School District.

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