Parenting can give us many opportunities to be proud of our little ones. When they can count to 10, say the alphabet, say “thank you,” or when they share, we applaud those moments. But lately, I find myself most excited when my nearly 2 year old eats her veggies.
Having easy access to nutritious food and direct experiences with fresh-grown and unprocessed food is crucial for our young children. Fresh school meals, garden activities, farm field trips, and hands-on food lessons all promote early good nutrition and education.
Farm to Preschool programs include serving locally sourced food at school meals; providing hands-on activities such as gardening, farm visits, and cooking lessons; and engaging youngsters, their family, and the school community in fresh-food eating, growing, and learning activities.
These sorts of events are becoming more popular and more common citywide as well as here in Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation’s Health Initiative has been working with area preschools and Head Start programs for more than two years through the Farm to Preschool activities, in which we have improved access to healthy, fresh food for more than a thousand youngsters and their families.
Our efforts to improve school food began with replacing canned fruits and veggies with fresh items at a single Head Start site. Farm-fresh items were later introduced.
Next, parents and area youth came together to repurpose donated materials and create school gardens and indoor planters, and fruit trees were donated to five area Head Start Centers. Volunteers offered gardening expertise to help train educators and others in the school. A winter pop-up market was offered to extend a regional farmer’s selling season and make freshly picked fruits and veggies available to preschool families. Classroom lessons on planting and harvesting were offered as a way to teach science and math.
Now, families and staff have become further involved with school-based, healthy-food trainings and options to purchase weekly farm shares at school. Building upon these accomplishments, the programming has spread to three more communities and now includes 20 sites, 1,100 children, and many community and national partners.
Early nutrition has a huge impact on our children’s ability to learn, grow, and thrive. One in four children in the city are food insecure, but many children consume the majority of their daily nutrients in child care centers (making school meals an important vehicle). A diet of high-quality ingredients known origins is crucial. Early introductions to fresh foods can benefit children throughout their lifespan. Demand for foods that are minimally processed is increased when we have direct experience with fresh food and know where it comes from. Indeed, it’s possible to get back to the farm, even here in Brooklyn.
Research shows Farm to Preschool activities support an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption among participants. Particular preferences for or against certain types of foods are common among preschoolers, and unfortunately, vegetable consumption is typically low.
In assessments at program sites, however, we’ve seen vegetables wasted during school meals decrease from 60 percent to 30 percent. I’ve seen first-hand, students referring to fresh spinach samples as “yummy” and eagerly requesting miniature apples as a snack.
Families benefit from programming as well. I’ve seen countless examples of parents and grandparents recounting fresh food experiences from their youth and discussing how they have reintegrated fresh food practices into their current habits through home gardens or cooking from scratch.
As a mother of a toddler, it’s my great pleasure to be a part of efforts to improve access to and knowledge about fresh, nutritious foods for our littlest consumers.
If any of the above gets you excited, there are multiple opportunities to get involved. Administrators can start small and include garden lessons, obtain food from local markets or farm shares, or conduct visits to local food-producing gardens. Restoration’s Health Initiative can provide program support.
Families of preschoolers might offer to volunteer for in-class activities or field trips. There are options to buy fresh produce through farm shares in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville (sign up at Corbi
Ask your child’s day care or preschool where it gets its produce, and if it is not getting it from local or regional farmers, encourage it to do so. For more information, visit Resto
Afia Bediako is a community health advocate and manager of the Farm to Preschool program at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. She can be reached at abedi
