("Eat Your Color" Fridge Magnet)

School gardens are sprouting up all over the country, lunch programs are becoming healthier and more hospitals are sourcing sustainably grown food. Lisa’s Organics, purveyors of organic frozen vegetables and vegetable side dishes, is inspired to keep this momentum going by supporting healthy meal initiatives in schools and hospitals. Let’s leverage the common interest of the school garden, the lunchroom and the hospital in order to serve meals that help children thrive.

THE PROGRAM

We want to help Northern California schools and hospitals grow healthier meal programs together. Collaborative partnerships propel initiatives forward. By partnering school gardens together with hospitals for healthier meals, they can galvanize each other and work together towards positive change in the foods they serve. School gardens teach kids how to grow food and eat healthy. At the same time, it is creating systemic change in our food system by nurturing more conscious eaters for tomorrow.

With Gardens to Hospitals, kids will be advocates for change in their school lunchroom as well as the kitchens serving meals to kids in hospitals.

Sutter Hospitals

“Lisa’s Organics believes that when we teach kids how to grow food and eat healthy we are simultaneously creating a massive change for good in our food system,” said Lisa’s Organics Founder Lisa Boudreau.

In each location, as in Amador County, students will grow food in their school garden, or work in conjunction with a hospital garden. The vegetables grown by the students will be shared during an interactive event where students and patients exchange information about growing food and participate in a garden activity or another collaborative art project.

In Amador County, science students at Argonaut High School will take what they have learned in their school garden and lead an event with child outpatients from Sutter Amador Hospital in Jackson, Calif.

“Nothing is more valuable to my students and I than to be able to have these types of hands-on experiences. This is an opportunity to show them just how important they are and what a big impact they can have on others. We are very excited to be a part of this project,” said Kelsi Himmel, Argonaut High School Science Department chair.

Gardens-to-Hospitals is part of a growing trend to introduce systems-based learning into education and help young people see the connectivity of relationships in their environment and surrounding ecosystems.

With school gardens, students learn to understand, not just memorize, ecological principles. Through the hands-on experience of Gardens-to-Hospitals, young people will make a deeper connection to their food and understand how food unites a community, the company said.

“Sutter Amador Hospital is excited to partner with Lisa’s Organics to help raise awareness around healthy eating habits in our community,” said Kim Vagt, director of Food and Nutrition Services at Sutter Amador Hospital. “Our pledge to serve nutritious meals to our patients plays an important role in helping to improve their overall health and well-being.”

According to a 2010 study by UC-Santa Cruz’s Life Lab, there are over 600 school gardens in California and over 50 California hospitals have taken the “Healthy Food in Health Care Pledge” supported by Health Care Without Harm. The Sutter Amador Hospital has taken the Healthy Food Pledge and by partnering with Gardens-to-Hospitals, they reinforce their commitment to providing healthy meals for their patients, staff and visitors.