When someone who was familiar with Katelynd Todd’s Empower Literacy program heard about the Clinton Foundation’s global initiatives, she contacted her and suggested that Todd apply to attend its big conference. The catch was that those who apply must have a social enterprise idea and a commitment to better the world. Since Todd was passionate about health, she knew she could meet the challenge.
She then came up with the idea of creating a nine-month nutritional program to combat hunger. Todd wanted it to involve healthy food and showing communities how they can grow it. She named the program GROW, which is an acronym for Growth and Retention of Wellness.
Evidently, the Clinton Foundation liked her idea because they accepted her application. Todd attended the conference in March 2015, and it’s been a creation ever since. The Foundation provided her with structural education, and the Resolution Project is mentoring her and funding GROW in the amount of $3,000, all of which is to be used on the project. Since then, she has spent a few months putting the program together, including writing a pretest to see what participants know before engaging in GROW and what they end up knowing afterward.
GROW launched in October 2015, and the first population it will serve is the inner-city nonprofit MetroKids Konnection that was founded by Todd’s grandfather Pastor Terry Lane. It’s the perfect match because MetroKids tries to improve the lives of underprivileged kids in Jacksonville’s most violent neighborhood—the Cleveland Arms Apartments.
GROW will teach these kids all about planting and harvesting a garden, including the different types of gardens: indoor gardens, outdoor gardens, and vertical gardens for those areas that don’t offer a lot of space. It will also teach them about a water catchment system that uses big empty trashcans placed on the side of a building to catch natural rainwater flowing out of the gutters. After the rainwater is filtered, it will be used to water the garden.
Throughout the nine-month period, the kids are responsible to maintain their garden while they’re taught several other important lessons, like basic nutrition, what’s healthy and what’s unhealthy, how to read labels, and portion sizes. They’ll participate in group activities led by eight volunteer site leaders.
Their final project will be to take what they’ve grown and teach cooking classes to their parents and others in the community. This allows them to take pride in what they’ve learned, and it helps them acquire teaching and speaking skills. All in all, these underprivileged kids are given new experiences that they otherwise wouldn’t have gotten without participating in GROW.
Ultimately, the garden doesn’t just benefit the kids. The community will also use the garden eventually, so they won’t have to go down the street to buy fast food. It saves money while providing a healthier alternative.
So by the end of this nine-month period, MetroKids will have a community garden, and a group of students will become group leaders and will pass on their acquired knowledge of growing a garden and nutrition. GROW will move onto different communities, but it will always be a part of MetroKids because this program can be repeated over and over again.
Todd would love to see GROW integrated into summer camps and schools all across America. It’s important to teach kids, especially at a young age, what food means to them, healthy options, and how healthy food and nutrition affects the rest of their lives. She wants it to be a way that the kids can be proud of what they’re learning, and then they can teach the adults. This all goes back to nutrition.
Those interested in creating a GROW program where they are, volunteering, seeds, and cookbooks can email Todd at GROWourkids@gmail.com. You can also contact her at this email address to give a donation, which is always welcome. Those who donate money to this worthy cause can have the satisfaction of knowing that they will be investing in health, one community at a time.
