J.R. Madey

TEDxSoleburySchool2015: J.R. Madey

Herb Appeal: Modern Day Apothecary

J.R. Madey is currently a junior at Solebury School. His vast array of interests include running, the environment, and politics. Most notably, J.R. has spent the past two years taking part in Solebury School’s Teach2Serve program, a two year course that teaches high school students to address social and environmental problems in our world through social innovation and service projects. In the first year of the program, J.R. and his teammate Afrah based their community service efforts around food insecurity. Together, they organized food drives and planned service trips benefiting local food pantries in addition to creating an educational video about food insecurity in the Bucks County area. During the summer between J.R.’s first and second year of Teach2Serve, he served an internship with Rolling Harvest Food Rescue, a local non-profit which works to combat food insecurity in the tri-county area. J.R. also volunteered at Roots to River Farm, an organic farm and CSA in New Hope, Pennsylvania, to learn more about his interest of organic foods and agriculture. J.R. is currently in his second year of the Teach2Serve program where he is developing his own capstone project working with his friend Amanda at Locust Light Farm, her farm and apothecary where she is growing a wide variety of medicinal herbs. J.R. is taking an in-depth look at the health benefits of natural remedies and medicinal herbs based on his experiences harvesting and processing them with Amanda and writing about his findings in his blog, Herb Appeal.