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Week of Thursday, July 22, 2004
Program teaches By JUDY
BUSACK The Ypsilanti Roots & Shoots Youth Garden Program started in May and is going strong, says one of the coordinators, Paula Fields, director of the Freighthouse Farmer’s Market. Fields and Amanda Edmonds, founder of Growing Hope, a nonprofit that promotes education, food production and life empowerment through community-based gardening, have partnered with the city of Ypsilanti to bring the program to children. The Ypsilanti Roots & Shoots is built on the premise behind the success of the Perry Learning Garden, which encourages young people to learn more about nutrition. "I got a grant from Pfizer for $25,000," said Fields. "Amanda was talking about gardens and I had noticed online an article out of California about kids gardening. I wanted something that would let the kids do hands-on and get more young people to the market, be able to make money and see how a business works. There is something about growing your own food, cooking it and eating it." The goal of the program is to teach the children, ages 10 to 14, nutrition, leadership, local history and, of course, gardening. "We have 10 kids and they are great. The response is excellent," said Fields. "The people enjoy them at the market and the Depot Town Cruise is raising money to send them to Cedar Point. The kids are trying to earn money, and they said they would pay to go there so the Cruise is trying to help them out." Not only do the children learn how to grow, harvest and market fresh vegetables, fruits and herbs, they are also taking field trips to farms to see food production on a larger scale. They also participate in 4-H and might be attending the Michigan State Fair and the Washtenaw County Fair. Edmonds recruited the children from local schools, and the group meets on Tuesdays and Saturdays at the Farmer’s Market. Fields said they are also showing the new gardeners how to use the vegetables, fruits and herbs they are growing. "They love it. There are so many comments," said Fields, about how the children are responding to the program. "They enjoy the digging. We had to put in new soil (in the garden area) and one boy dug that whole part of the garden up. I told him he didn’t have to do it all, and he said ‘I like doing this.’ They like the hands-on. They love to see the plants grow and getting to know what the plants are." The children have also built a greenhouse, which will be used in the winter to grow bulbs and starter seeds and in the spring to supply community gardens, said Fields. |
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