Gardening Gives the Kids of Migrant Workers a Head Start
Gro More Good Garden Grants lets kids get their hands dirty and teaches them about where their food comes from.
Originally published by EatingWell
By: Lindsay Warner, EatingWell
When preschool teacher Tonya Langston first asked the children in her Bowling Green, Florida, classroom where milk came from, their response was: "the kitchen." When she asked them where a banana comes from, same answer: "the kitchen."
Langston's students are young—3 or 4 years old—but because they're the children of professional migrant farmworkers, Langston and her fellow teachers wanted to teach them more about what their parents do, and why it's important.
To help them understand the impact of their parents' work, every child in the East Coast Migrant Head Start Project has an opportunity to get their hands dirty on a daily basis in a school garden that's planted and tended by the students.
The East Coast Migrant Head Start Project is part of a nationwide program made possible by the Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation, designed to help children and families living in at-risk communities access fresh, healthy food. Through the Gro More Good Garden Grants initiative, young children like those in Langston's classroom receive typical public-school prep, but they also learn where carrots come from—and how to grow them.
