Grow Your Own will host a free workshop on January 11 on making your own kombucha that tastes great for pennies a bottle. Nancy VanWinkle will lead the hands-on workshop in Hardwick at the Center for an Agricultural Economy. Advanced registration is required by January 8 by calling the Hardwick Area Food Pantry at (802) 472- 5940 or by emailing food pantry director LauraLee Sweeney at director@hardwickareafoodpantry.org. Child care is available for very young children on site; older children are welcome to participate with their parents. In this hands-on class, participants will explore the world of beneficial bacteria and learn how to cultivate these organisms to be consumed in a tasty, sparkly beverage. Kombucha is not only refreshing, it is good for the gut. The workshop will begin with a kombucha tasting, followed by a step-by-step kombucha making extravaganza. All participants will go home with a half-gallon starter batch of kombucha and their very own kombucha mother, or SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeasts). With a little TLC, the SCOBY will provide a lifetime of probiotic beverage and will produce more "mothers" to pass along to friends. Participants will also receive an illustrated recipe card for kombucha to keep. The class will go from 1 to 3 p.m. Grow Your Own is a project of the Hardwick Area Food Pantry, Center for an Agricultural Economy and NEK Kids on the Move (Wonder Arts). Its mission is to increase food independence, better health and wellbeing through shared knowledge and experience.