Archive: Around Town

How do you get your preschooler to eat vegetables?  That's a question every parent asks, and the answer is often elusive.  Tompkins Community Action's Sheila Bowman and Rachael Fish are hoping that the answer is for the children to grow them themselves.  " We want to see if they will eat more vegetables after we have done all of this education in the classroom about gardening and vegetables," Bowman says.  "We actually planted them right in the classroom.  We're hoping that their consumption increases after all of this hard work is put in."

Last week Lansing's Head Start class was up bright and early, planting nine garden boxes outside the elementary school.  While adults hauled dirt and raked, kids helped out by helping to shovel dirt into a wheelbarrow, and by playing with worms they dug up. The project is the result of a $500 grant that Fish obtained from the New York State Association for the Education of Young Children (NYSAEYC).  She applied after being approached by Cornell researcher Christine Porter.  "She came to our management and said 'We would like to do a study on how gardens change the way preschool children eat vegetables,'" Fish says.  "I loved the idea, because I'm a health nut.  So I put the grant together and went with it.  Our purpose is to increase the consumption of vegetables, as well as try to teach families how to do this at home.  We want to see if it changes the consumption of vegetables, as well as giving children an interest in gardening." Kids and their families had input into what vegetables they would plant.  In December they planted their vegetables in pots, which were sent to Dan Segal to care for at The Plantsmen Nursery until they were ready to plant.   They planted  lettuce, radishes, turnips, tomatoes, carrots, sugar snap peas, beets, chives, and pumpkins.  Each box will be tended by two children, with the ninth box cared for by the staff. Trumansburg is being used as a 'control' site for the study, because it has a similarly sized program.  Fish says that the difference between Trumansburg and Lansing is that kids here eat fewer vegetables.  "Trumansburg had more carbohydrates," she says.  "Only three of them didn't eat the vegetables, but here only three ate the vegetables and everyone else had carbs.  We'll see if that changes." Children in the program will be able to take vegetables home for free throughout the summer, which could mean a big savings for their families at the grocery store.  "We're hoping that by the time we harvest the vegetables that the kids will be interested in eating more vegetables," Bowman says.  "Even if the grant is not renewable we are hoping to continue this and have families involved over the summer to come harvest." Bowman says she is relying on her taching assistant Deb Chaffee as the gardening expert.  And Dan Segal, an expert in indigenous plants, has provided help and advice.  "He has been awesome," Bowman says.  "Any question we've had about what will live in this area, he has been an amazing resource.  After we planted he housed all of our plants so they would survive until we could plant them in the boxes." Tompkins Community Action runs preschool programs around Tompkins County.  Fish is the Family Involvement Coordinator, while Bowman is the teacher in Lansing.  The pair see the project as a model for future projects across the county.  Fish says she has applied for an additional $10,000 to expand their project to the other Head Start sites. "I think they're so much more likely to eat them fresh from the garden than prepared and cut up," Fish says.  "They get to see where it comes from, and how they get their food.  It's a really great project."

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