The three pillars of the Y’s mission are healthy living, social responsibility and youth development. Fostering a healthy lifestyle begins very young, as any parent will tell you. Kids who learn good habits in their youth are more likely to keep them up when they are adults.
Of course, getting young children to eat their vegetables can be a difficult task. One way to do that is to get them involved in growing their own as much as possible. Kids who turn up their noses at green things often end up avidly munching on veggies fresh from the garden that they’ve grown themselves.
At least, that’s the hope for the new vegetable garden at South Oakland, says Kyle Anderson, executive director of the South Oakland YMCA. The South Oakland Y is turning some land near their building into a vegetable garden that will be used by kids in the day camp programs next summer. They’ll plant the vegetables, tend them and then harvest them for snacks.
“We want to do our part in combating childhood obesity,”says Kyle. “Diet is a huge element of that. If we can start implementing healthy vegetables, we are doing our part to emphasize healthy eating.”
The garden was donated by a program called Little Green Gardeners and the Junior League of Birmingham. South Oakland board member Abigal Sigal is part of the Junior League and let Kyle know about the opportunity. The garden was installed last month and volunteers loaded in several cubic yards of dirt in order to get the garden ready to plant next spring.
Kids will plant vegetables next summer, during the first week of day camp, and continue tending them over the summer. When the harvest is in, kids can incorporate them into snacks at the Y but also bring them home and share them with their families. Not only does it help encourage healthy eating habits, but kids also learn to be patient, nurture something properly, and develop a sense of accomplishment when the vegetables they have tended are finally ready to harvest.
They are looking into ways the garden can be incorporated into programming in other ways, Kyle says. They may be able to offer healthy cooking classes for adults or other programs once the day camp has ended and the growing season continues. “We plan to cultivate it for as long as we can.”