Christina Todd
ENG 102
Final Local Research Essay
March 8, 2011
Edible School Gardens
Their Role in the Fight Against Hunger and Creating Volunteers of the Future
This report looks at both the pros and cons of implementing ediable gardens into all public and private high schools and jr. high schools in Boise to help relieve the ever growing burden to feed the hungry in Idaho. Using the obesity epidemic, the lack of knowledge of how to care for yourself if you find your plate bare, and the slow decline of volunteering as all strong arguments for the garden plan this reports details my belief that the future is held in the ways of the past, when your only option of survival was to work land and produce a crop.
Christina Todd
ENG 102
Final Local Research Essay
March 8, 2011
Edible School Gardens – Their Role in the Fight Against Hunger and Creating Volunteers of the Future
It is just before 10am in Wendell, Idaho, a small farming town of 2,430 people, when David Proctor, Public Affairs and Media Coordinator for The Idaho Foodbank, and his co-workers arrive at the Wendell Firehouse with the Mobile Pantry. The Mobile Pantry is a program run by The Idaho Foodbank that delivers food to rural areas of Idaho that does not have the facilities set up to store the food that the Idaho Foodbank delivers. Working together with local volunteers the Mobile Pantry is responsible for delivering 2,585,079 pounds of food every month to the many high poverty and remote areas in the state (IFB 11). David is greeted by the many volunteers from the Fire Department and the local church and together they unload the donated food onto five large fold out tables lined up in front of the firehouse doors. Already a large line has formed; David has learned they have been there for almost four hours, hoping to get enough food to feed their family until the Mobile Pantry returns in a month. “It didn’t just resemble a depression era soup line,” states David, “it was one.” This is an all too common scene in Idaho; skyrocketing gas prices and food cost have left many families wondering if they should pay the rent/mortgage, pay for gas, pay for utilities, or pay for food (PROCTOR). In 2006, 2008 and 2010 faith leaders, charitable emergency food providers, state and local government, health providers, advocacy groups, business and industry, and community leaders in Idaho met for the Summit on Hunger and Food Insecurity to try and discover ways to end Idaho’s hunger problem for good. While many great ideas where addressed in these summits such as raising the minimum wage, repealing the sales tax on food (ISH 2006 5), universal school lunch for all children, changing the asset test for food stamp eligibility (ISH 2008 2), developing an Idaho Food Stamp outreach plan, and increasing participation in the Summer Meal program (ISH 2010) no one was discussing where to get the food from or how to help relieve some of the pressures of finding food from the shoulders of organizations like The Idaho Foodbank. Maybe being a daughter of a farmer has made me more aware of what the land can produce, but I feel Idaho is ignoring a great resource for fresh vegetables and fruit by not looking at the relationship between schools and local food pantries and how using mandatory involvement and by the students to grow, cook and process food for the hungry will not only impact hunger but also impact volunteerism for years to come.
The Idaho Foodbank is one of only 200 organizations like it around the entire United States. Their sole job is to find and distribute food to the over 200 food pantries located throughout Idaho. This is a very hefty job as Idaho was ranked 13th in the nation by The Food Research and Action Center for food hardships in the first half of 2010 (FRAC). The Idaho Foodbank is run like any other distributorship; they receive and store product in large warehouses located in Lewiston, Pocatello, and Boise everyday they work to fill the never ending orders given to them by local food pantries, churches, schools, and even whole rural towns, like Wendell. Unlike their profit counter parts though The Idaho Foodbank runs solely off donated and purchased food and money from Idaho’s citizens and businesses. Scenes like the soup line described by David Proctor is a sadly a common scene in Idaho as of late, one only has to look at the jump in statistical numbers to see that the state is in need of some relief and fast . In 2010 the Idaho Foodbank distributed 8.9 million pounds of food or 6.98 million meals, up from 2009 when 6.8 million pounds or 5.3 million meals were distributed (Proctor). In 2010 The Idaho Foodbank along with their partner Feeding America surveyed those receiving food help and discovered that:
· 47% of those receiving emergency food assistance in Idaho reported having to chose between paying for food and paying for utilities or heating fuel
· 34% had to choose between paying for food and paying for their rent or mortgage
· 34% had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care
· 37% had to choose between paying for food and paying for transportation
· 49% had to choose between paying for food and paying for gas for their car
As previously stated, the Idaho Foodbank is Idaho’s leading solider in the fight against hunger. “71% of partner food pantries rely on The Idaho Foodbank as their single most important source of food” (IFB 4). They have many successful programs, like the Mobile Pantry, geared towards helping families in need. They are a part of The Grocery Alliance Program, which is a program that works with local grocery stores to collect close date fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, grain and protein and deliver them to the Idaho Foodbank storage unit. “It is important to note that just cause a product says sell by does not mean it has gone bad. Every day a staff member of the Foodbank picks up close dated food from stores like Fred Meyer, this is our number one source in delivering high-quality fresh nutritious food” (PROCTOR). Indeed it is, in 2010 the Grocery Alliance Program helped deliver 2,035,185 pounds of food to the Idaho Foodbank, up a hefty 141% from 2009 when they helped deliver 843,592 pounds of food (IFB 8). In 2009 The Idaho Foodbank was proud to introduce the Beef Counts, Idaho’s Beef Industry United Against Hunger, the first ever program of its kind in the United States. Ranchers, action yards, feedlots and industry associations work together to provided beef to Idaho’s families (IBF 10). Another program, one dear to David Proctor’s heart, is The Backpack Program. This program was devised many years ago in the mid-west when an elementary school teacher noticed kids, who relied on the school system’s cafeteria for food, where coming back from their weekend hungry. Schools along with their local food pantries began sending home small bundles of food to get them through the weekend. It was soon discovered that many kids were not taking advantage of this program because they were embarrassed to be seen by their school friends taking home food. Introduce the backpack, now at the beginning of every school year teachers and school administrators get together to determine who is in the most need of assistance; those children are given backpack full of nutritious and easy to prepare food every Friday. Each sack cost $6.11 to prepare and contains two breakfast, two lunches, two dinners and two snacks, enough food to make sure all students return on Monday well nourished. “The sad fact is right now we make 2000 of these. Every week we set up an assembly line on these tables,” David points to a long line of tables arranged along the back isle of the Boise warehouse, “where we stuff bags to be delivered to the schools knowing that we could easy fill 7000 backpacks if we had the ability too” (PROCTOR). 5000 kids in Boise go hungry every weekend, does that seem right? Should we be letting this happen? Can we stop it from happening?
The truth is hunger may never end, there are too many variables one must control, like the economy, to ensure everyone prospers, never in a time of history has the entire world been free of hunger, but are we really doing all we can? The answer is no, the state is overlooking a very important tool, the schools and their students. Schools should not only be used as tools of education, but also factory work shops producing things to help the community that supports them with a free education. In the case of hunger relief the blueprint is simple; there are 16 public and private high schools in Boise city limits (BOISE). Imagine if working together through their graduation required elective classes’ students at each school grew and maintained a minimum 30’ x 30’ edible garden for local pantries. At harvest time, which Boise is fortunate enough to have three, students would deliver half their bounty to the local pantries on a daily basis and half would be sent to the schools home economics class room where more students would learn to cook, jar, and preserve the fruits and vegetables, their creations would also be delivered to the local pantries. This would ensure that at least 5 months out of the year a strong influx of food support would be coming in from various schools and thus helping to relieve Idaho Foodbank’s struggle to find enough food to feed those in need. “We have taken a big hit this last year in our food supply from the big chain stores, like Wal-Mart, have opted to sell their damaged and mislabeled good to the dollar stores instead of donating it to us and taking the tax write off. We need all the help we can get,” says David Proctor. The benefits of edible school yards reach much farther than just helping those in need they also offer students the knowledge of healthy eating, give them the skills to grow, cook and preserve their own foods, and teach them the value of volunteering.
16% of America’s children are obese. Over the last 30 years the number of children ages 12 to 19 who are obese has tripled, it can officially be called an epidemic. According to an article published by the Nutrition Journal “Overweight and obesity in childhood are known to have significant impact on both physical and psychological health” Cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, pulmonary diseases, and gastrointestinal problems are just some of the things obese children have to look forward to in their future since studies state that 80% of overweight kids will grow up to be overweight adults (DEHGHAN). The school garden plays a very important role in teaching America’s youth about the importance of eating right. Erin Oxen, MS, RD and Amber D. King, MS, RD published an article through the School Nutrition Association looking at the direct link between school gardens and increasing fruit and vegetable consumption. Their report looks at the edible garden’s impact on children’s food choices. They believe that many children do not have the opportunity to encounter fresh fruits and vegetables. If children are allowed to discover them because of a school based learning garden programs they will not only know how to make and eat healthy foods but want too (OXENHAM). School gardens also touch another side of the of the obesity epidemic , the decline of physical activity in today’s youth brought on by TV, video games, and busy parents (DEHGHAN). Many researchers believe gardening can be a great alternative to a traditional 30 minute work out. Working in the garden helps strengthen your endurance, resistance, flexibility, and strength. Digging, spading, and transplanting dirt and soil works the upper body, back and legs. Weeding, planting and harvesting work hands, forearms, shoulders, legs, hips and hamstrings (RINDELS). Any activity that can get America’s kids to eat better and move more is essential to fighting the obesity epidemic, taking an hour out of a child’s school day for garden activity is giving them the tools to be healthier adults.
There was a time in America’s not so distant past that the majority of families living in America lived off what their land produced and what wild game that could be shot, hooked, or trapped. If you didn’t posses the skills to grow a garden, preserve the bounty and cook from scratch, you would starve by mid winter. When did it become okay not to teach our children how to survive? In the winter of 2006 Stephanie Bella found herself and her family faced with some of the same questions that the Idaho Foodbank was asking its families. How are we going pay mortgage and eat? Should I pay for gas or get food for our three year old? What are we going to do about the power bill, if we pay that how are we going to get food? “I was having a real bad day after making another call to another utility company begging for more time,” Stephanie recalled, “ I was crying at our patio door when it dawned on me, I own land, I know how to work land, I know how to grow things and preserve things.” Stephanie was born on a family farm in California which produced enough crops to feed her family, her uncle’s family, and her grandparents. Besides the main money producing crop of apples, the ranch was lined with blackberry bushes and strawberry plants, which every year when ripe Stephanie, her sister, and her two cousins picked and brought back to their grandma. Under their grandma’s supervision the girls were taught to turn the berries into jams, pies, frozen treats, and what was left over was frozen to be used later on that winter. The same was for said for the vegetable garden, the herb garden, the two avocado trees, the four orange trees, the plum tree, and the two lemon trees – breads and muffins were baked, fruit preserved, salsa made and jarred, spices made and vegetables stored. For the past four years Stephanie has produced a large kitchen garden in her backyard, she grows vegetables in a 15’ x35’ space along her house, container herb gardens grow in all her windowsills, she has an apple tree and plum tree and her fence is lined in berry bushes and grapes. “Don’t get me wrong, we still struggle, especially in early spring when the harvest runs out and the new one has yet to be produced, but my grocery bill certainly feels the relief of harvest time” (BELLA). She welcomed a new addition to her family this past June and has yet to purchase a single store bought baby food container, “I pureed tons of vegetables and fruit from out garden last year and froze them, and that is what Charlie has been eating since he started on solid foods (BELLA). Stephanie was given the skills to help care for her family in times of crisis; all kids should be given that same opportunity. Edible school gardens have the potential to teach children how to never go hungry, to rely on themselves first and not on agencies like The Idaho Foodbank and their partners, lack of knowledge in these areas have lead people to look more for a handout then to do the dirty work themselves, this way of thinking will not prove victorious in the fight against hunger.
Edible school gardens have the ability to produce volunteers of the future. For the past ten years government and school districts have worked together to try and establish mandatory community service for graduation (CQ). This requirement will prove very important in establishing the edible school garden plan. Summertime is the busiest time in any gardens life, unfortunately that is also the time that school and its projects are the furthest from any child’s mind. Studies have shown that participating in some form of community service, be it voluntary or not, positively influence adult volunteering. Forcing children to become involved in issues like their community’s hunger problems puts them directly involved with personal situations instead of just reading about them, if they are able to put a face to hunger, things like having to give a week of their summer vacation will not seem like such a sacrifice. Over an eight year period Daniel Hart, Thomas Donnelly, James Youniss, and Robert Atkins studied the relationship between high school community service and community service as an adult. Their finding indicated that “both voluntary and school required community service in high school were strong predicators of adult voting and volunteering” (HART). The United States has seen a dramatic decline over the last five decades of those willing to give up their own personal time to help those less fortunate as them, by introducing the school gardens to this generation, if Hart and his associate’s findings are true; we will be building a foundation of volunteers for years to come (HART).
There are barriers and challenges to implementing gardens into schools. Some are quick fixes like those who are concerned about the lack of curriculum associated with a garden based class. When it comes to implementing a school garden curriculum California gets an A. Universities all over the state have researched and developed study guides and training sessions for teachers and schools (TAFT). Other barriers are not quite so easy to conquer like funding, the over abundance of vegetables and fruit that people don’t know what to do with and essential let go bad, and people’s beliefs that children should not be forced to do any sort of community service for any cause.
Funding is the largest of these road blocks, but all good plans need capital to get off the ground and the edible school yard plan is no different. In a state whom finds themselves in the middle of a brewing war over education reform, the last thing Idaho thinks it needs is an experimental project that cost more money. According to Alice Walters, founder of the Ches Panisse Foundation, the annual budget for The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California is $400,000. However, the Edible Schoolyard needs to be looked at as the top to the mountain and not, by any means a starting point. The Edible Schoolyard is a one acre piece of land next to the playground at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School that Waters along with sixth, seventh and eighth grade students transformed into an edible garden in 1995. Ten years later it is a thriving kitchen and garden class room geared toward food prepared by the students for the students (ORENSTEIN). To scale it down and bring it closer to home, meet the Northside Elementary School Garden Club, an after school program developed by Gail Burkett, Janet Clar, Sharon Burdick, Jill Edmundson, and Michele Murphee in Northern Idaho. Murphee says they did not know what to aspect on their first meeting and were surprised when thirty-three kids signed up for an hour after school every Monday. The club received a grant from the Community Assistance League to buy equipment like shovels, gloves, clippers, seeds, and a wheel barrow. People and businesses also pitched in donating plants, soil, manure, and compost bins. Murphee and the other women were surprised by how hard the kids were willing to work, “they shovelled dirt and manure, built beds, and planted like crazy without complaint” (MURPHEE). At the end of their harvest 100 pounds of lettuce had been produced as well as carrots, peas, green bean, squash, tomatoes, potatoes, berries, onions, peppers and pumpkins. The children’s bounty was sent off to the local food pantry. All in the entire entire project cost about $3000.00, and a lot of hard work by students, parents, and faculty (MURPHEE). When and if a project like this where to every get pitched to the Idaho School Board a $3000.00 a year price tag is better sounding then $400,000.00 one.
People’s lack of knowledge of how to prepare fresh vegetables is a major problem for the Idaho Foodbank. David Procter tells me that every year when donated garden vegetables are handed out people look at them and say, “What am I supposed to do with this?” The problem has gotten so bad that not only is food handed out, but recipes on how to prepare it as well, still the stares continue. “This is a big problem. Every year we know a lot of pounds of food is wasted because people don’t know how to prepare it,” David says. Take zucchini for example, The Idaho Foodbank’s number one donated garden produced vegetable, anyone taught about vegetables and how to prepare them would know that zucchini can be chopped up to replace half the hamburger need in any recipe or that it can be thinly sliced and mixed with spaghetti noodles thus extending your food longer, you don’t use as much hamburger and you don’t use as much noodles. If you don’t have the skills of course you would look at a raw vegetable and question how this will help you. If the garden plan were implemented future generations would know what to do if handed a basket of fresh vegetables instead of looking at it as if it were some sort of foreign object.
Forcing students to tend a garden and cook for the poor walks a fine line between citizenship and slave labour, bringing back the debate started in the first President Bush’s time in office, should schools be allowed to force mandatory community service for graduation? Over the past ten years the number of high schools requiring mandatory community service has steadily increased with students being required to complete anywhere from 40 to 100 hours before they can graduate. Most people would agree that community service is a good thing; however the group is quickly divided then the word mandatory is included in that statement. Some have gone as far as to sue school districts for violating the constitutional prohibition of slavery. Opponents of mandatory community service argue that students “are already overwhelmed with homework, exams and college applications,” (SASLOW) and should not be forced to take on yet another task unless they chose of their own free will to do so. What right does the government have to tell people that they need to help feed the poor and hungry? Of the many opponents I ask is this really a government issue or a human rights issue, isn’t every human afforded the right to eat?
There is no solution to hunger; only armed with hard work, knowledge, and innovative thinking can we even begin to make a dent in it. The edible school yard can provide the adults of tomorrow with the skills to better serve their community, to help their families in times of need, and help them be healthy and well nourished human beings. This could also just be the beginning, imagine implementing jail edible yards, and community run farms all working under the same umbrella of hard work and knowledge to end hunger. “We all have contributions to make in ending hunger and malnutrition and that each one of us, even in small ways, can be a hero to someone else” (FEEDING). I encourage everyone to plant a garden this spring and see where it takes you.
Works Sited
BELLA: Bella, Stephanie. Personal interview. 26 Feb. 2011
BEJAR: Bejar, David. Mendoza, Rosa. Rizal, Rachel. Shetty,Keerthi. “Children’s Diets & the
Benefits of School Gardens a Report for the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative.” Tuft Scope University 8.2 (2009): 36-41. Print
BOISE: Boise District Schools “Find a School”. Independent School District of Boise City.
Web.
CQ: “The New Volunteerism,” The CQ Researcher. 13 Dec (1996): 6.46. Pages 1081-1044.
Print.
DEHGHAN: Dehghan, Mashid. Akhtar-Danesh, Noori. Merchant, Anwar. “Childhood obesity,
prevalence and prevention.” Nutrition Journal 3.33 (2005). Print.
IFB: The Idaho Foodbank 2010 Annual Report. “Leading the Effort to End Hunger in Idaho.”
Boise: Idaho, 2010. Print.
HART: Hart, Daniel. Donnelly, Thomas. Youniss, James. Atkins, Robert. “High School
Community Service: as a Predictor of Adult Voting and Volunteering.” American Educational Research Journal. Vol 44. (2007): 107-219. Print.
ISH 2006: Idaho Summit on Hunger and Food Insecurity. “Making a Place at the Table for All
Idahoans”. Final Report Summit Conf. Boise: Idaho. 27 Oct. 2006. Print.
ISH 2008: Idaho Summit on Hunger and Food Insecurity. “Healthy Decisions for All”
Idahoans”. Final Report Summit Conf. Boise: Idaho. 10 Oct. 2008. Print.
ISH 2010: Idaho Summit on Hunger and Food Insecurity
Stopping Hunger Before it Begins. Final Report Summit Conf. Boise: Idaho. 19 Oct. 2010. Print.
FRAC: Food Research and Action Center Food Hardship: A Closer Look at Hunger State Data
through June 2010. Dec 2010. Web.
MURPHEE: Michele, Murphree. “Edible Schoolyards Sprout in North Idaho.” Northwest Food
News. 1 Jan. 2011
ORENSTEIN: Orenstein, Peggy. “Food Fighter.” The New York Times 7 March 2004. Print.
PROCTOR: Proctor, David. Personal interview. 15 Feb. 2011.
SASLOW: Saslow, Linda. “High Schools Mandating Community Service.” The New York
Times 1 May 1994.
REINDELS: Reindels, Sherry. “Gardening for Exercise.” Iowa State University of Science and
Technology. 10 Nov. (1993): 161-162. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment