What’s Growing On? January 2022 News from Grow Education

In our Grow Education program, January is the time for visioning and planning for the upcoming spring. Before we order seeds for March, there is time to pause and ask, “What would you grow in your dream garden?” Our FoodCorps members are helping students envision questions like this during the winter months.

This is also a great time to look internally with the youth by connecting mindful eating to nutrition and agriculture.  Several lessons were taught to students including Grow Education’s “Mindful Bites” lesson that walks a student through a mindful eating experience and additional FoodCorps lesson plans such as “Eat the Rainbow” and “Go, Grow, Glow” which continue to explore the importance of eating a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables for improved health!

All of Grow’s educational programming compliments the work our FoodCorps members are doing in partnership with the New Bedford Public School’s (NBPS) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable program. Each week the NBPS’s Food Service Department offers two special fresh fruits or vegetables that students get a chance to try outside of the lunchroom. The goal of the program is to accustom students to trying new and different vegetables. If trying new foods and flavors can become habitual among New Bedford’s youth, then think of the possibilities for the future! Food security in our region may depend on the willingness and excitement for residents to demand and eat more fruits and vegetables, just as much as it does the accessibility of these foods!