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Watermelon Wednesday
September 2025 Issue #12
Blue Watermelon Project is excited to be in more schools than ever before!
This year we have expanded our programming to 50 schools throughout Arizona. More schools means more students, more learning, and more impact! Curious to know which schools we partner with? Click the map above to get a glimpse of everywhere we are and see why each school participates.
Our August Chef in the Garden featured tomatillos and a recipe from Chef Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz's book "Nana Lupita and the Magic Sopita." Click here to watch last month's video and see below for more information about our featured chef and farmer!
Chef Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz
Farmer Juan Aguiar
Chef Felicia is an award-winning author, curandera, herbal teacher, and holistic chef from the Sonoran Desert. As a child she was deeply influenced by her great-grandmother, a healer in Old Town Albuquerque, who was well known as a midwife and folk herbalist.
Called to walk a similar path as her grandmother, Felicia began studying massage therapy in the mid-nineties, followed by decades of learning folk herbalism, whole food cooking, and curanderismo practices with teachers across the Southwest.
Felicia lives with her husband in Phoenix, Arizona, offering workshops and healing sessions for her community near and far.
Thank you Felicia for sharing your story and talents with our Chef in the Garden learners!
Blooming Reed was established in 2018 in Paulden, AZ by Juan Aguiar Bravo and his wife, Keeton.
Blooming Reed has a wide assortment of beautiful flowers and vegetables such as squash, peppers, tomatoes and more. They are committed to using sustainable practices and are a minimal-till farm. Not tilling their fields means they aren’t bringing up dormant weed seeds or bothering the ecosystem underneath the roots which leads to healthier soil.
You can find their incredible array of fresh flowers and vegetables at Prescott Farmers Market. Check out their event calendar for details.
Special thanks to Blooming Reed Farm for letting us visit and being an integral part of educating students on how to plant tomatillos.
“It was great, it was all the best food I have ever tried. I love this soup!
- 5th grade, Whispering Winds
“I love it! I learned something new. I would love to do it again.”
- 7th grade, Jones Gordon
“I like how it was really easy and fun to do and I want 1,000 more”
- 5th grade, Barcelona
“It was well prepared and a wonderful experience!!!”
- 8th grade, Biltmore Preparatory
THANK YOU!
Your purchases of culinary equipment during our Christmas in July campaign will be used directly by students in our Chef in the Garden program to cook, learn, and create healthy recipes this year!
Expanding our program to more schools across Arizona means we need more equipment to use in classrooms, and your generosity made it possible! Thank you for supporting our mission.
Thank you to the wonderful volunteers who make our work possible! August meant packing and delivering the first kits of the school year, and we even got started with chef demos in some of our classrooms! It was an impactful month that makes us excited for what's to come. Interested in being part of the impact? New volunteers can click here to sign up for Volgistics account to see all of the upcoming opportunities. Already have an account? Existing volunteers can click here to log in and check out the calendar!
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