When she was in the third grade, Katie Stagliano received a homework assignment that changed her life: To grow a cabbage from a single seedling. Hers grew to about 40 pounds. She took the cabbage to the local soup kitchen, where it was served with ham and rice to around 275 people.
“When I looked at the people in line I thought ‘wow, they’re just like my family,'” Katie says of her experience handing out food that day. “For all I know, they could have been my family who had fallen on hard times.” Six years later, Katie’s Krops supports 75 youth-run gardens in 27 states and has raised over $200,000.
Watch Katie’s remarkable story here, and check out the feature film The Starfish Throwers where she is featured alongside two others whose individual efforts to feed the poor are igniting a movement in the fight against hunger.
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Tag: garden
One in Five Baltimore Residents Lives in a Food Desert. These Neighbors Are Growing Their Own Produce
Boone St. Farm operates on two vacant plots in the center of East Baltimore Midway, one of dozens of neighborhoods in Baltimore identified as “food deserts.” Cheryl Carmona adopted the land in 2010 with two goals — that it serves as an urban farm that grows and provides fresh produce for its neighbors, and as a community garden where residents can learn about growing their own food.
Dozens of neighbors have pitched in and, four years later, Boone St. Farm has grown thousands of pounds of affordable produce. Residents on food stamps pay only $5-10 a bag. The community plots are used for gardening workshops and offer classes in nutrition to students at the nearby public school. As Boone St. Farm enters its fourth season, Carmona plans to include local cleanup initiatives and other projects aimed at making the farm an essential part of the neighborhood.
Here’s a Garden for ‘People With Small Spaces and Limited Time’
One of our nation’s most pressing issues is the production of sustainable and healthy food supplies. A company called Earth Starter has created a solution that makes it incredibly easy for anyone to grow their own vegetables and herbs. Nourishmat is a gardening system “designed for people with small spaces and limited time.” It is essentially a four-by-six-foot tarp with labeled holes cut out, custom-made seed balls, and an option for a built-in irrigation tube. “People need not only an affordable solution, but also education and resources,” says co-founder Phil Weiner, who found that one of the biggest barriers to gardening was in education. In light of that discovery, Earth Starter focuses on working with local schools to create edible schoolyards and neighborhoods. Check out their Kickstarter campaign here.