Kids & Cooking in the Garden!

By Jill Jacklitz

Have you ever visited the Troy Kids’ Garden?  It’s an amazing place.  On any given day in the summer you will find 20 to 30 kids watering plants, pulling weeds, moving mulch, and marveling at the delicious vegetables they just picked from their garden.  One day in July a group of kids picked some breakfast radishes.  With the help of our interns they sliced them cracker thin and then topped them with their homemade yogurt dip.  And then they gobbled them up.  Yes, they ate radishes.  And they did not need sugar or fat or blue food coloring to coax them into it. 

 Thousands of kids from diverse backgrounds have visited the Troy Kids’ Garden. They have learned to love gardening and to make better choices about the food they eat.  The research is clear-- gardens are an optimal setting for nutrition education, opportunities for physical activity and a lifelong connection with nature. 

Cooking in the garden is one of the best ways for children to develop an appreciation for healthful food.   Unfortunately, our current space doesn’t accommodate the level of interest of our young gardeners nor the scope of culinary activities in which they wish to participate.  So we want to build a new open air outdoor classroom at the Kids’ Garden where kids can experiment with the food they grow while learning about alternative energy through human- and solar- powered equipment like sun ovens and bicycle blenders. 

An anonymous donor through the Madison Community Foundation has just offered us a $25,000 challenge grant to help us with this exciting project! Please help us meet the challenge by making a tax deductible donation today. Just think, every dollar you give will be matched by this generous donor, until October 1.  Visit our secure website to help us reach our goal and to help thousands more kids experience the joy of growing their own food!