Something Good Grows in Anacostia

by Nadja Strucker, Harvest for Health Outreach Associate at the Capital Area Food Bank

“The Food Bank’s collective experience working in the east of the river community has shown that to change the current situation and increase community food security, all players have to make a commitment to make change a priority. This may sound rhetorical, but what I mean by this is that the community has to take ownership of its situation and want to change…”

Posted on May 5th by Harvest for Health Program Director, Jody Tick

One person in the Anacostia community who is taking steps to address access to fresh produce is Ms. Hannah Hawkins, the founder and executive director of Children of Mine Center, Inc. in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, DC. Through an ongoing relationship between the Capital Area Food Bank and Ms. Hawkins, five food bank staff members and four friends built eight raised vegetable beds at the center on Saturday April 26, 2008. The garden will be used by the Harvest for Health department staff of the food bank to engage youth at the center in a fourteen week-long hands-on gardening experience that will also educate about making healthy food choices. The produce will be used in education programs in addition to being incorporated into daily meals at the center. The food bank has hired an amateur chef to teach bi-monthly cooking classes for parents, guardians, and youth at the site that will teach about cooking healthfully with limited resources (both monetary AND grocery access) that will hopefully engage the whole family!

Before

After

May 12, 2008

Planned 2008 harvest at Children of Mine Center:
Fruits and Vegetables: beets, cabbage, carrots, chard, collards, cucumbers, kale, lettuce, peppers, pumpkins, squash, tomatoes, zucchini
Herbs: basil, chives, cilantro, dill, lavender, mint
Flowers: foxglove, marigolds, nasturtiums, salvia, sunflowers, zinnias


Nadja Strucker is Harvest for Health Outreach Associate at the Capital Area Food Bank. Harvest for Health seeks to facilitate access to affordable, healthy food; educate about the relationship between the food system, our environment, and social justice; and provide skill building opportunities for people to help themselves.