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July 16, 2010
LAMP lights the way in teaching kids about nutrition
VALDOSTA — The program recently started by Lowndes Associated Ministries to People Inc. (LAMP) which kicked off year-long program designed to educate inner city Valdosta and Lowndes County youth about good health and nutrition is in full swing after their Portable Home Garden specially designed garden was delivered on June 16, 2010. The unit was provided to LAMP by a special grant received from ConAgra's Heart and Hands Project.
Local children and teenagers helped with the delivery, setup and planning of the home garden. They planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, squash and beans.
The ConAgra Heart and Hands Project has three phases taking place this year.
“Phase one is know your farmer, know your food, grow your food,” said Diane Howard who wrote and submitted the inter-city grant to ConAgra Foods and is heading up the project. In January, Howard saw the request LAMP was going to make for the $25,000 grant from ConAgra Foods Foundation and decided to write the grant proposal for the program.
“I said, ‘We can do it. This is doable,’” she said. “I knew that with God’s blessing that this would be funded and it was.”
Before the custom-designed garden was delivered, the area had lots of trash, cigarette butts and broken glass, Howard said. After cleaning the area, the garden was designed to fit the location.
Phase two will take place this fall, with the youth learning about nutrition and exercise. They will also make hot pepper and pickled pepper sauces and design labels for the sauces before they go on sale in Homerville at Station 11 in October and November.
Phase three will teach the youth how to create PowerPoint presentations with the help of Valdosta State University’s Mass Media Department, as well as other area schools. The youth will be placed in teams to create a presentation on everything they learned during the program. They will share their presentations at civic club meetings, in classrooms and churches.“The kids did plant. They had a ball,” Howard said. “It was like little ants running around.”
The youth range in age from 10 to 17. Some are residents of New Horizons, an emergency housing shelter at LAMP. Others live in other areas of the Valdosta-Lowndes County community.
A month has passed since planting the unit and the plants are doing well!
“This trashy heap has been redeemed and it’s now a lush, fruit-bearing urban garden,” she said.
To learn more about LAMP’s ConAgra Heart and Hands Project, contact Diane Howard at (229) 244-3998 or dhoward202@mchsi.com. To learn more about LAMP, visit www.lampinc.org/.
