Middle school students from around St. Louis will have the chance come to the Danforth Campus this summer for Camp Kumquat, an educational day camp led by student farmers of the Burning Kumquat, Washington University’s student-run organic garden.

The Burning Kumquat’s leaders say that the camp will inspire a love of gardening in St. Louis youth.

Camp Kumquat, first held in 2009, did not run last summer due to inadequate financial support from the University.

This year, the camp will be supported by Quadrangle Housing, the Office of Sustainability and Bon Appétit, which will provide daily lunches and snacks for the campers and counselors.

Junior Lee Ann Felder and sophomore Terry Main will lead the camp as counselors, and junior Amanda Wolff will serve as the garden manager. She will take the food that the students harvest to sell at the North City Farmer’s Market.

“I’m interested in agriculture, and that’s why I started doing things with the farm,” Wolff said. “I want to inspire these kids, to activate this kind of interest in them. I want them to know where food comes from, why it is important to buy things in season; it’s the really hands-on part.”

Counselors hope to share their love of organic gardening with the kids who attend the camp and teach them about plants and sustainable food.

“It’s a fun way to learn about science, math and where our food comes from,” Felder said.

The camp will be divided by grade level into three two-week sessions in June and July, with activities running daily from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Camp attendees will hear from plant biologists at the University and will take field trips to urban community gardens around St. Louis.

“Community gardens are much more frequent than we think. They are all over the city, and odds are there [are] a couple in the neighborhoods where these kids will be coming from,” Wolff said. “The reason that we want to take them on field trips is to say, ‘Look, this is happening in your neighborhood.’”

The counselors are currently recruiting at nearby public middle schools. They are hoping to reach a wide array of students and their families as well.

“We’re not just reaching out to the kids, but going even further to their families and their friends and their classmates. Their parents are the ones buying the food for them at home; their parents need to be involved just as much as they do,” Wolff said.

To accomplish this goal, the counselors plan to organize a family banquet at the end of each session.

By sharing knowledge about sustainable food with the kids and their families, the camp leaders hope to encourage the campers to incorporate what they learn into their homes and schools.

“We want the kids to come back to school and come back to their homes with this knowledge and this interest so that they can tell people, ‘Hey, the stuff that we’re eating in school could be better,’” Wolff said.