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Food Over Football
When Michael Sorrell took over as president of Paul Quinn College in 2007 , he cut the football program . He then had the idea to turn the playing field into an urban farm . The idea came to him when talking to a potential benefactor about the fact the college was in a food desert and the conversation steered towards community gardens . A relationship with Pepsi later helped turn the unused football field into a two-acre organic farm . Today , there ’ s a 3,000-square-foot greenhouse , chickens , bees , and an orchard . Since its inception , the farm has produced 50,000 pounds of food , 10 per cent of which is given away .
— edsurge . com
Kimbal Musk Leads a Mission to Fix Food in US Schools
Oakland Museum Features Year-long Exhibit on Local Urban Farmers
Until January 2019 , the Oakland Museum of
California will host “ Take Root : Oakland Grows Food .” The exhibit highlights local urban farmers and their challenges and motivations to educate museum visitors of how , where , and why food is grown in the city . “ We want people to come away with a greater awareness of what it takes to grow food ,” says Kelly McKinley , the museum ’ s deputy director , in an article on eastbaytimes . com . The exhibit features interactive displays such as a drawing table , a photo contribution wall , felt vegetables kids can “ plant ” in pretend planters , video interviews with growers , video footage of insect pests , and a map showing the city ’ s food deserts and the lead levels in local soil . “ There are some hard-hitting topics in the exhibit , but another piece for us is inspiration ,” McKinley says . “ We want people to feel inspired to maybe grow strawberries in their yard or start their own garden .” For more information , visit museumca . org .
In 2011 , Kimbal Musk started a nonprofit program that brought learning gardens to 300 US public schools . Now , he ’ s renamed the program Big Green and has plans to expand . In April , 100 schools in Detroit will break ground on their own learning gardens , which are part playground and part outdoor classroom spaces where students learn about growing food . Big Green will then extend to Colorado Springs , Louisville , Long Beach , and San Antonio . In all , $ 25 million will go into the program , which hopes to see 100 gardens in each location by the end of 2020 . “ Kids today are totally disconnected from real food . The industrial food that we create is high-calorie , low in nutrients , doesn ’ t taste good , and shipped from thousands of miles away . And we ’ ve been creating a massive amount of obesity and diabetes ,” Musk says in an interview with Business Insider . “ In some lowincome communities , nearly 40 per cent of kids will go into kindergarten [ overweight or ] obese . That ’ s just unforgivable . That ’ s not something they did to themselves ; it ’ s something we did to them . It ’ s time that we realize that it ’ s a human right to understand what we are putting in our bodies .”
— businessinsider . com
— eastbaytimes . com
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