In today's fast-food culture, it's not easy to get kids interested in eating fresh, local food. But in Massachusetts, Seeds of Solidarity, a nonprofit organization, has partnered with six schools in a poor and working-class area to address problems of obesity and food insecurity (lack of resources to procure adequate quantity and quality of food). Their goal is to put fresh, local food on the menu and educate teachers and students about nutrition and food policy. Seeds of Solidarity is a grassroots nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide people with the inspiration and practical tools to grow food and use renewable energy in their communities.

The schools involved are in Athol and Orange, the largest of the nine towns in North Quabbin, a predominantly poor and working-class, white, rural region in Central Massachusetts. There are 2,986 students attending public schools in Athol and ­­Orange. Twenty percent of the children in the North Quabbin Region live below the federal poverty level. Athol and Orange are among the 50 poorest Massachusetts towns (of 351) with less than 75 percent of the median household income for the state.

"There is an ongoing need to promote health in our communities," explains Orange Superintendent Paul Burnim. "Health involves both the physical and mental well-being. If our teachers and families grow to understand the importance and correlation of a good diet with school achievement and lifelong health, we all benefit."

	Photo: Seeds of Solidarity / Deb Habib

Seeds of Solidarity had been running SOL (Seeds of Leadership) Garden, an after-school and summer gardening-based program for Orange and Athol teenagers, since 1999. In 2003, funding through a USDA Community Food Projects grant enabled partnerships with schools to expand and initiate school-based gardens. Deb Habib, director of Seeds of Solidarity, approached the North Quabbin superintendents, principals, and teachers. She explained that Seeds of Solidarity could contribute time and a small amount of grant funds toward a project to encourage youth to grow and eat fresh food. She then asked teachers in the schools to help design a project that worked for them. A diverse array of projects was born of these early conversations, ranging from a "pizza garden" — growing tomatoes, peppers, and onions — at two elementary schools to three greenhouses built with students at three schools in which 5th graders, 8th graders, and a special needs inclusion class now raise and distribute more than 1,500 organic vegetable seedlings to gardens throughout the community.

In addition to the gardens and greenhouses, Seeds of Solidarity partners with the schools' health educator to provide a one-hour presentation to 40 classes on local food from local farms as part of the health curriculum, featuring Seeds of Solidarity staff dressed in character as Tired Transported Tanya and Lively Local Louise. Teens from Seeds of Solidarity gardens help facilitate these presentations. Seeds of Solidarity interns also provide teachers and students with three monthly lessons on seed sowing, transplanting, and composting during the early spring, in preparation for outdoor gardening. These programs and activities are aligned with the schools' overall efforts to create and implement wellness policies (see sidebar p. 37). Gardens and Greenhouses "It is so much cooler to eat something after you've helped it grow; it makes me want to eat more of them," says Lillian, 13, an Athol student. "I've been trying a lot of new foods that I never had before."