Tuesday, February 10, 2009

How About Them Apples?

Megan- U of M Horticulture Student and Community Assistance Program project

coordinator for the CGB Fruit tree project
So last spring every kid at CGB Elementary School got a $30 voucher for healthy summer snack to be used at the local small town stores. A wonderful idea. A couple days later I bought a few fruit trees from Lou's Greenhouse in Big Stone City, SD. $30 food voucher in one hand- $27 fruit tree in the other. Hmmmm. If we planted a fruit tree, those kids could have healthy summer snack right out their doorsteps.

So three of us, a parent, teacher, and food shelf staff person put our heads together and now are starting a project to plant a fruit tree in the yard of every CGB Elementary student. Our dream is to:

• Improve household and community food security
• Increase families access to healthy food
• Teach children practical sciences about fruit tree care, horticulture, plant, and soil sciences
• Let our school children get to know a college student who is excited about her work in Horticulture and see this as a potential career for themselves
• Create local self reliance in fruit tree care, fruit production, and preserving fruit to eat throughout the year (think apple sauce, dehydrated apple rings, or cold storage of apples).
• Test a new way for Food Shelves to provide a more sustainable food source for clients (like planting fruit trees)

We could use a bit more support for this project. Click on Continue Reading to find out how:

If you are interesting in contributing to this project, we could use some help purchasing the trees.

Please make a tax deductible contribution to the Clinton-Graceville-Beardsley School Foundation!

Send your checks to:

Southwest Initiative Foundation (put CGB Foundation on the memo line)
15 3rd Avenue NW
Hutchinson, MN 55350

Thank you!

No comments:

Post a Comment