Students in Miami-Dade County are learning about nutrition by growing their own food! All thanks to the new Miami Marlins garden.
"Within our wellness pillar we really focus on food insecurity and a number of different programs address that problem here in our local communities," said Angela Smith with the Miami Marlins Foundation.
The goal is to teach children about sustainability and how to grow their own fresh fruits and veggies at home like cucumber, broccoli and squash.
"We’ll be working with a number of our local schools and we’ll be bringing kids here on field trips and we’re developing a curriculum [that] will really teach them about nutrition," added Smith.
According to the State of Childhood Obesity, in Florida over 15% of youth ages 10 to 17 have obesity. This giving Florida a ranking of 22 among the 50 states.
What contributes to this are food deserts, low-income neighborhoods that are more than a mile away from a grocery store with fresh food. In South Florida, there are over 300 food deserts.
"It’s about being able to have a back-up reserve of food to supplement their normal diet," said Ben Machado with Citizens for a Better South Florida.
The Miami Marlins Foundation partnered with organizations to help spread the word about the community garden.
Machado said they’re providing workshops to teach children at a young age about nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle.
"It shows them where their food actually comes from, how they can decide what they want to eat [and] what they want to put in their bodies. We have about 50 different kinds of plants here so we can demonstrate different kinds of gardening methods," said Machado.
"When they come here for the field trip, they’ll leave here with a portion of fruits and vegetables from this garden and they’ll also leave here with a plant to be able to plant at home," said Smith.
Starting next year, there will be several community garden events. To learn more, click here.
