Katie Stiel
The Paw Print
Jenna Kallestad
La Puente Volunteer
The fight against obesity and malnutrition in America is becoming exponentially more important as related health issues, as Type 2 Diabetes skyrocket across the country.
La Puente’s Alamosa Community Gardens Program (ACG) seeks to address these issues with integrated, engaging school lessons for all students in kindergarten through fifth grade. This past year, ACG worked with over 1,000 elementary students, for a total of over 4,000 hours of garden science and nutrition education.
This progressive program is based on nationwide studies proving that educating children about developing healthy eating habits and fostering a relationship between children and where their food comes from has the potential to dramatically cut our rates of obesity and malnutrition in the future.
As a program of La Puente, Alamosa Community Gardens relies solely on grants and donations, which can be an ongoing struggle. Fortunately, right now there is an exciting opportunity for you to help ACG secure much needed funding to continue and expand the education program!
Alamosa Community Gardens was recently named a finalist for the Clorox Education Grant. A voting period will run from Nov.5- Dec. 12 and the proposal with the most votes will be awarded $50,000. This is an incredible opportunity for ACG to expand and improve the garden-science education program. The following excerpt from the Power a Bright Future website outlines the program proposal in detail and why you should vote!
Build an Experiential Greenhouse to Expand Garden-Science Program
Program Detail:
Alamosa, Colorado is a rural agricultural community with high levels of child poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition. There is a huge need for students to reconnect with the food system and engage in meaningful experiential learning about garden science, environmental responsibility and the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Answering this need, Alamosa Elementary School currently has a dynamic, cutting edge garden program that blends classroom learning with garden exploration, teaching everything from germination and photosynthesis to harvesting and making spinach smoothies. The program works with all 1,000+ students in grades K-5. As part of the program, 1/3-acre of land on the school grounds is being developed into an experiential school garden. The vision for this space includes creatively designed outdoor raised garden beds, a season extending hoop house, a composting center, a journaling and reading space and a year round passive-solar greenhouse.
How this Grant will Help:
Alamosa sits in a high altitude alpine valley with an extremely short outdoor growing season. Currently, students at the elementary school plant in their garden just days before school is out for the summer, and return to enjoy the harvest for mere weeks before the first frost brings an end to the outdoor growing season. The addition of a year-round growing facility would dramatically change the possibilities of this program, allowing students to engage at all levels of the plant cycle and enjoy bountiful, nutritious harvests throughout the school year. The Elementary School Greenhouse has been a part of the garden program vision for almost ten years. Now, with the completion of the new elementary school and a designated space on site for construction, the greenhouse dream can be realized! The design for this year round growing facility has already been completed and includes classroom-teaching space and a high-density growing room for limitless learning possibilities.
How you can help La Puente’s Alamosa Community Gardens Program:
Vote November 5th!
Vote once a day, every day! Visit the website and search “Alamosa” to find the project proposal. You can vote via text message or on the web(https://powerabrightfuture.clorox.com/)
Promote Alamosa Elementary School Gardens!
Promote via facebook and twitter by visiting hhtps://powerabrightfuture.clorox.com/nominess/detail/?ruid=2480 and clicking on the Facebook and Twitter icons and advocate the importance of voting on Nov. 5.
For more information about Community Gardens, feel free to call 589-4567 or email alamosacommunitygardens@gmail.com
What’s Been Said…