| Students plant their own vegetables in Newark |
It was good to see this outreach by Brick City Urban Farms (prior posts). The beneficiaries in this case are the young students (and their families) of St. Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark, New Jersey.
The potential for portable planter farms like Brick City Urban Farms (blog) is enormous. Even bigger is the potential for outreach projects like this school garden.
These portable gardens can and should expand exponentially through all of our cities. The only thing holding us back is ignorance.
Where we are today is a testimony to free enterprise and the power of individual citizens to create change. Thank god for blogs, garden forums, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet.
Think about what could happen if our horticultural institutions woke up from their deep sleep. Think about what could happen if you became an activist in support of this concept in your city. Among other good things, food deserts would disappear and our national health would improve.
Students at St. Benedict's Preparatory School in Newark are tending to seeds and seedlings they planted this spring, a small group of them continuing their watering and staking duties even now -- during their summer break -- to ensure good harvests later this summer and into the fall.
Their duties at the school's new container garden are just one element of a farming and nutrition project begun this spring by journalism teacher Noreen Connolly and Tony Carnahan, the school's director of college guidance. The goal is to get students to think differently about what they eat.
Done in partnership with Brick City Urban Farms, Newark's two-year-old city gardening initiative, the project encourages picky eating on a somewhat higher order than the usual "I hate broccoli" sentiment shared by countless youngsters. Through readings, film screenings, field trips and the gardening, Connolly and Carnahan put fast food under a harsh spotlight and encourage healthier eating.
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