School Gardens Taking Root

School gardens have taken root here in Moore County and are teaching our children the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Over the last ten years, 12 Moore County Schools have established gardens as outdoor classrooms where proper nutrition and physical activity is stressed. The interest and support for these gardens has been prompted by the national movements to address the childhood obesity and diabetes epidemics our country is facing.

Over the last 30 years, the percentage of overweight or obese children in the United States has tripled. Approximately 1 in 3 children is overweight or at risk of being overweight, and almost 40% of children are considered unfit. Children who suffer from diet-related disease score lower on tests, miss more days of school, and advance less in their careers. By 2030, when the current generation of kids reaches adulthood, diet-related diseases will cost our nation more than a $1 trillion a year: $500 billion in medical costs and another $500 billion in lost productivity.

An edible schoolyard movement is hard at work here in Moore County Schools to combat these epidemics. An advocate for children's health, Good Food Sandhills Executive Director, Kathy Byron, initiated the first school garden program at Aberdeen Elementary School in 2007. Byron believes that changing children's relationship with food is the first step to reducing childhood obesity. A school garden is “an outdoor classroom and living laboratory”, Byron continues, and the garden “will foster academic success, promote healthy eating, and reconnect children with nature.”

In 2011, Moore County Schools became an inaugural FoodCorps site, one of 50 in the nation, and one of five in North Carolina. FoodCorps, a branch of AmeriCorps, is a nationwide service organization that places leaders in limited-resource communities. Helenka Ostrum has served Moore County Schools for the last two years, connecting kids to real food and helping them to grow up healthy.

Helenka boosts of the cookbook she compiled with Southern Middle School sixth grade students. She remembers when a student told her “Don't tell my parents! I never eat zucchini and tomatoes at home, but this is delicious!” Helenka teaches students to identify, grow and cook their own healthy food, “changing minds and food habits one spinach leaf at a time.”

Helenka Lepkowski Ostrum is a FoodCorps Service Member in Moore County with Good Food Sandhills. Originally from upstate New York, this September Helenka returned to Good Food Sandhills for her second service year. In her first year she had experiences that were both fun—seeing kids excited about gardening by digging for worms and getting their hands dirty—and powerful, such as encouraging a reluctant student to try spinach for the first time and discovering he loved it. “Changing minds and food habits one spinach leaf at a time,” she says.

Good Food Sandhills and FoodCorps developed the first student farm in 2014, the Lettuce Succeed Student Farm. The farm provides after-school academic and nutritional enrichment for the students of Southern Pines and Aberdeen. Students receive farm based education that connect classroom lessons of math and science with what is growing in the gardens. Farm tasks range from mulching fields to bee keeping and rain catchment systems. Students grow and prepare healthy foods, but they also cook meals to share with the local community.

And it is the support of the community that Byron attributes the success of the school gardens. Teachers, parents, Master Gardeners, and other volunteers have all put numerous hours into the care of these outdoor classrooms. This upcoming school year, Good Food Sandhills and FoodCorps hope to impact more than 11,000 Moore County Students and their views of healthy foods. Children are the starting point for creating healthier communities, and school gardens are essential in providing students with hands-on lessons that connect them with healthy foods.

“Our Solution.” FoodCorps.org. FoodCorps, Inc. 2015. Web. 8 June 2016 <http://foodcorps.org/>. Fifth graders from Southern Pines Elementary mulch potatoes at the Lettuce Us Succeed Student farm.

“Eat your colors!” encourages dietitian and Master Gardener Jennifer Jawanda at Southern Pines Primary. Jennifer leads weekly classes at the school where she encourages the kids to eat an array of fruits and vegetables. “Half your plate should be fruits and vegetables”, she emphasizes.

Parents and grandparents can reinforce these same messages at home:

• Children can help plan and shop for groceries. The produce department is a great place to learn about different fruits and vegetables.

• Teach kids how to cook, incorporating fruits and vegetables into every meal

• Give kids the responsibility of growing their own plant. It can be as easy as growing basil in a flower pot on the kitchen window sill. The more exposure kids have to fresh fruits and vegetables, and to where they come from, the more likely they will be to grow up healthy.