Students of color in New York City learn how to forage and grow their own food
Learning Gardens has taught more than 20,000 students to feed themselves.
By Kiara Alfonseca
ABC News
September 26, 2022
Excerpt:
Learning Gardens teaches Black and brown youth like Hamadi to rehabilitate community gardens in low-income communities and learn how to continue to care for them.
The group’s mission? Food sovereignty and the right to healthy food. The organization wants children of color to feel empowered to feed themselves in a nourishing and sustainable way.
Black and brown families are more likely to face food insecurity or live in food deserts, or areas without affordable or good-quality fresh groceries. This can lead to poorer health outcomes, and compound on other systemic inequities.
Learning Gardens aims to give young people the tools they need to overcome such barriers.
“We don’t necessarily think about it like, ‘Man, we don’t have access to [good] food,'” said Shari Rose, City Parks Foundation’s associate director of environmental education. “Instead we try to flip it into empowerment. ‘How can we be able to grow food so that we can be able to make snacks for ourselves?'”
The initiative’s goals stem from a broader issue — one that has deep roots throughout U.S. history.
