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Second grader Laniyah McNeil excels in the three Rs at Stephen Girard School, 1800 Snyder Ave., and showed that her West Passyunk colleagues can likewise excel if they emphasize such vegetables as her beloved three Cs, carrots, cauliflower and cucumbers.
She and nearly 150 pupils spent Friday afternoon engaging in produce projects, with their biggest being an outdoor planting. Their top endeavor kicked off their management of a Teaching Garden, a seven-plot expanse that continues their facility’s relationship with the American Heart Association and aims to promote increased self-esteem and decreased waistlines.
“This is my first time planting,” Laniyah, a resident of the 2200 block of South Bonsall Street, said shortly after carrot, onion, radish, spinach and turnip seeds had left her fingers and entered the earth. “I can’t wait to plant other foods I like.”
The 7-year-old’s enthusiasm and similar zeal touched Jed Bordner, a physical education teacher who has aligned his site with the Center City-based association for seven years. The instructor beamed as much as the kindergarten through fourth grade class members as all made state history. Their celebration honored their selection as Pennsylvania’s first Teaching Garden and initiates a busy stretch that will include a spring seedling session, a summer harvest and an autumn planting.
“The garden and the curriculum will advance notions of responsibility and ownership of one’s nutritional identity,” the Northeast inhabitant said.
Girard’s participation in the annual Jump Rope For Heart fundraiser has netted $10,000, so the heart organization, having received a grant from the MetLife Foundation, decided to further its dealings with Principal Thomas Koger’s institution and create a new generation of planters.
“The foundation also asked us to place the garden in an area that receives subsidized meals,” Corey Hnat, the American Heart Association’s business development director, said of endowing Girard, one of his employer’s 30,000 partner schools, with a space that intensifies his organization’s collaboration with child-nutrition activist and Teaching Garden founder Kelly Meyer to heighten health.
Hungry for knowledge and nutrition, the kindergarteners began by marching to the garden with aspirations to grow goodies. In honor of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday, they donned Dr. Seuss hats, as did Koger, who introduced cardiologist Vincent Figueredo of the Einstein Health Network.
“You are going to be scientists, and this will be your laboratory,” the doctor said. “I need for you to teach your relatives and friends about the benefits of healthy eating.”
After presenting Koger with a plaque featuring a miniature shovel, Figueredo fraternized with the youngsters. Children use french fries as their most common vegetable source, with 25 percent of their intake deriving from the greasy potatoes, according to a 2009 Journal of the American Dietetic Association piece. No such artery attackers were present Friday as Nicholas Cooks led the line and inserted the day’s first specimen, a carrot seed that brought a smile to his 5-year-old face. Four more lucky samples left his fingertips and began their growth cycle.
“I liked the seeds,” the resident of the 2300 block of South Woodstock Street said. “They were so small but neat.”
After the ebullient boy had parted with his handful, he joined his classmates inside for a vegetable taste test. Little cups contained shredded carrots, cucumbers and spinach, and Nicholas gobbled his treats before taking a book on carrot seeds from an impressive pile of literature.
He and the others excitedly anticipated a trip to the auditorium, where spirited rounds of fruit and vegetable bingo kept all learners conscious of colors and concentration. The steady pace continued as classes yielded to one another at various stations. The exterior action brought much joy as the other seeds joined the carrots. When grown, the plants will inspire a summer celebration through which the budding growers will receive an edible reward for their endeavors.
In addition to the taste tests, outside tasks and bingo bonanza, the students tended to tables adorned with vegetable-related crossword and seek and find puzzles and coloring sheets. Giggles dominated the hallway, as they also reached into bags to try to identify numerous fruits and vegetables, many from foreign lands. Laniyah enjoyed the entire day, but the taste test, with its involvement of two-thirds of her favorite crunchy provisions, delighted her most.
“The crunchier, the better,” she said after teacher Michelle Conti had read “I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato” to her and her 27 classmates.
Their West Passyunk haven prides itself on its existing nutrition curriculum, with Conti’s class holding weekly 30 to 45 minute lessons on the perks of consuming low-fat, high-fiber foods. The school receives regular visits from a School District of Philadelphia official who enhances the appreciation of shunning gutbusting temptations. Friday marked Laniyah’s premier planting of edible wonders, but the second graders are cultivating marigolds and sunflowers to distribute to their matriarchs for Mother’s Day.
In the meantime, they are reveling in their selection, one of 12 national nods. Bordner, an eighth-year faculty member, witnessed the keenness two weeks ago when leading the classes through the garden.
“We still feel so honored to be a Teaching Garden site,” he said, adding that designation came in early November.
Bordner knows the primacy of changing attitudes about nutritional control. The immediate need for advocacy is leading him to try to transform the garden into a whole school initiative.
“The students will become experts at understanding growth potential, both the literal kind they will observe by watching over the plants and the figurative type they can talk with their families about,” he said.
The schools determine a garden’s scope, according to the pulmonary organization’s website, so Bordner, also the school’s Health Champion representative, wants the plants to help everyone’s self-esteem to sprout.
“I am eager to hear their pride when they say ‘I grew this,’” he said.
Many lessons will touch directly on math, science, reading and writing and will mesh with the garden’s maintenance, Hnat said. The nation’s largest volunteer organization, the association has won over Koger with its outreach.
“We look forward to expanding our relationship,” Koger said. “We would love to have them back for a salad.”
Contact Staff Writer Joseph Myers at jmyers@southphillyreview.com or ext. 124.
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