Author: Tasha Tucker
Planning Unit: Breckinridge County CES
Major Program: Nutrition and Food Systems General
Outcome: Long-Term Outcome
According to Feeding America, 14.7% of Breckinridge county children struggle with food insecurity. Food insecure children are likely to be sick more often, recover from illness more slowly, and hospitalized more often. Children who are food insecure also struggle to concentrate and focus and has been linked to higher levels of behavioral and emotional problems from preschool to adolescents, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. In order to combat this huge issue Breckinridge County Nutrition Education Assistant and Breckinridge County Library partnered to use the Arbor Grant to build and utilize community raised beds at 5 of the local schools. At each school, two to four raised beds were planted, weeded, watered, tended by the children and staff.
Grow it, Try It, Like It curriculum was taught to the kindergarten to third grade children. Kids were also given hands on experience, planting seeds of watermelon, beans, and marigolds. Seeds were used as experiments and further study in the classroom. Children also took the plants home and were encouraged to plant them and make their own garden. Children throughout the community would see the assistant and librarian out in Breckinridge county and tell them how big the plants had grown at the school and also the plants that had been planted to take home.
"For If you give a man a fish, you feed him for the day. and he will eat for a day. If you teach him to fish, you will feed him for a lifetime."
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