Bronx Helpers Cooking Garden Club's Global Youth Service Day
4/21/12
I first heard about the New Settlement Apartments – Bronx Helpers Cooking Garden Club through Alyssa Ruiz, who is always raving about the group and how they did such a good job with their Adopt a Bodega project. This is the group that created the Bodega Down Bronx video a couple of years ago. I was so glad to have the opportunity to hear them present at the GreenThumb Grow Together conference this year and was so inspired by the youths’ motivation to work towards food justice. They were promoting their upcoming Family Dinner Night at New Settlement Apartments. It was nice to see the youth in action in their own community, educating the community members about food justice through a variety of engaging activities, and having the group share a lovely meal together, that was prepared with the help of their mentors, the Public Allies. At the Family Dinner Night I picked up a flyer for their Global Youth Service Day event, which I was fortunate enough to attend as well.
The Global Youth Service Day event was held in their garden, which is the backyard patio of one of the apartment buildings where they have a couple dozen Earthboxes set up with plants in varying stages of growth (new things were just planted recently as it’s the beginning of the season). The day started off with a couple of fun icebreakers – the backwards name game, where you had to pronounce the person’s name standing next to you backwards, followed by a version of “train wreck” where everyone picks the name of a fruit or vegetable. *The person standing in the middle has to say the name of a couple of the fruits and/or vegetables, or “fruit salad” or “anything green” etc. Everyone who’s fruit or vegetable is called has to move from where they are standing and find a new spot, and try not to get stuck in the middle.) This game was an interesting way to get people talking about fruits and vegetables!
Next we broke into groups and decided upon a skit that incorporated themes of a problem, solution, food justice, and health. These skits would be done at the end of the event.
There was a wonderful potluck-style lunch of tomato, basil, mozzarella open-faced sandwiches; potato salad, couscous, salad, artichoke dip, sweet potato chips, salsa, guacamole, and more. It was quite a feast!
After lunch, the group rotated through a couple of stations – there was a gardening station, where Luisanna taught the group about planting seeds in a little cup with soil (moistened with water from the hose) and compost mixed in. We decorated the containers and everyone planted seeds – most of which were probably gotten from the GreenThumb Grow Together conference which happened a couple of weeks ago at Hostos College. We then labeled the plant by writing the name of the seed and the date on a popsicle stick and sticking it on the side of the container.The next station was a cooking demo station (or rather, two cooking demo stations). Leeza led one of the groups and showed everyone how to make a fruit-yogurt parfait with granola. A couple of people volunteered to cut the strawberries and bananas. The fruit was added into vanilla bean Greek yogurt, and granola (with or without nuts) was sprinkled on top. There was even honey to put in. These were delicious!
Finally came time for the skits. The groups talked about the unhealthiness of fast food and processed food and how healthier choices such as fruits and vegetables will help us combat diet-related disease such as diabetes and heart disease.
Before the crowd dispersed, we celebrated one of the Bronx Helper’s birthday (Kim’s) with homemade chocolate cupcakes with Nutella and Craisins on top. A lovely way to finish off the group’s time together today!
I really enjoyed this event because it encompassed so many different aspects of food justice – learning to make healthy food, learning to plant seeds and use compost, sharing a meal of nourishing food, and talking about the health impacts of fast food and how we all need to do our part to eat healthy even in the midst of many unhealthy fast food restaurants.