It seems like agencies that serve underprivileged people are always stretched to their limits.  So our challenge with the FGU program is to help agencies to learn about how to grow, store, and prepare fresh produce in a way that is exciting, but also manageable for busy agency staff members. Ultimately, our goal is to not only provide healthy food to front line organizations, but to help them become their own source of fresh produce through farmers markets, urban gardening, and partnerships with local growers.

Some agencies are a little hesitant at first, but they get the hang of it in no time. After two years of participating in the FGU Fresh Produce Grant, Martha’s Table has started growing their own produce on location! Last summer they built raised, movable garden beds in an underutilized parking lot by their trash bins.  This will be a learning tool for the kids in their daycare program. Bounty from the garden will supplement the produce received from Clagett farm to help feed kids in the daycare, as well as folks from the “McKenna’s Wagon” mobile food pantry. Growing in the beds are wax beans, bell peppers, tomatoes, onions, kale, celery, morning glories, and lots of herbs. They even built a trashcan compost which can be easily rolled for aeration.  Check out the Martha’s Table post to see the whole story of their urban garden adventure!

Aromatic herbs help deter the smell from the trash bins behind them.

Can you believe they did all this in a matter of weeks? Go Martha’s Table!

The FGU Fresh Produce Grant is a partnership project of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Clagett Farm and the CAFB with the goal of providing up to 50% of Clagett’s harvest to low-income individuals in the Washington, DC metro area.  We invite you to help us Share the Harvest by contributing to this wonderful collaboration. For more information about the FGU Fresh Produce Grant, or to get an application for your CAFB agency visit our FGU page.

Recently, children from the afterschool program at Martha’s Table toured the White House Kitchen Garden, part of a special celebration of their graduation from our Operation Frontline class series.

“Please, can I eat some? Please, please?!” Nine-year-old Randi was not begging for a sugary or salty treat, but for fresh spinach, growing in the ground and glistening from the falling rain. Our tour guide, White House Assistant Chef Sam Kass obliged her request and 11 kids from the inner city stood on the White House lawn munching fresh-picked spinach, surprised by its sweet taste — and asking for more!

Our cooking & nutrition education program works.  If children take part in exploring healthy foods and preparing it with their own hands, they are likely to taste it, share it, and brag about the healthy recipes they know how to prepare.  Our nutrition education staff team knows this, as do our hundreds of culinary and nutrition volunteers.  The Obama administration knows this too, and that is why they welcomed our group to the Kitchen Garden and even let us visit the White House kitchen (where the chefs were preparing stuffing for holiday parties!).

Nine-year-old Tyreke shared with Chef Sam Kass his “whole wheat banana hotdog” recipe (i.e. a slice of whole wheat bread rolled around a PB&J-smothered banana) that he has been making at home, sharing what he learned about the benefits of whole grains and fiber on health. This is a great example of the kids translating what they have learned from classes into their homes!

As a follow-up to the visit of the White House Kitchen Garden, we hosted a second Reunion class last Wednesday.  Volunteer culinary instructor Charmion and I (the nutrition instructor) led the kids in preparing some White House garden-inspired recipes featuring spinach: Grapple (grape & apple) spinach salad with home-made honey mustard dressing and spinach yogurt dip with toasted whole wheat pita triangles.  Tyreke even demonstrated the creation of his banana hotdog recipe and taught the other children how to prepare and enjoy it. Overall, it was a great class series; we were sad to say good bye, yet excited that our Operation Frontline program made such a big impact on their children, perhaps the beginning of many of their healthy food adventures!

I hope that you’ve also had the chance to experience kids’ positive response to healthy foods.  Try taking the time to invite kids into the kitchen to cook with you during the holidays this year, or perhaps make it your New Year’s resolution to volunteer for Operation Frontline! Email us to volunteer.

Ensuring that all kids in America get the healthy foods they need is a large and multi-faceted challenge and we all have a part to play — in our homes, in the community, and even in the rain and twilight on the White House lawn!

Want to hear and read more about our White House Garden trip?

• Check out our interview with NPR and see more photos