NHCO gets garden grant

Since celebrating its first season in 2011, the North Hills Community Outreach (NHCO) Rosalinda Sauro Sirianni Memorial Garden, located in Bellevue, has produced more than 10,000 pounds of organically grown fruits and vegetables for distribution in NHCO's three food pantries, which serve nearly 1,700 local families annually.Those numbers are bound to become even more impressive, as NHCO recently received a $30,000 grant from the Grable Foundation to continue youth initiatives in its community-based, organic garden in fiscal year 2015-16. The youth initiatives provide fresh, healthy food options, hands-on nutrition education and leadership training to young people in communities in northern Allegheny County. This is the second time that NHCO has received this grant.With the help of the Grable Foundation and other community partners, NHCO added an educational component to the garden in 2013-14 to improve nutrition and to increase physical activity in children --especially from low-income and disadvantaged families -- and to build leadership skills in youth volunteers."Employees and volunteers created educational materials for the garden and have performed outreach in local schools to teach children and teens about seed-starting, urban farming, nutrition and the importance of including fruits and vegetables in their daily diets," said NHCO executive director Sharon Wolf.In fiscal year 2014-15, NHCO engaged 119 young people, including youth groups, and 80 adults who donated nearly 1,500 hours in literally "making the garden grow." Volunteers reached an additional 200 local students through NHCO's school-based educational programs, including seed-starting programs. These efforts made fresh fruit and vegetables available to more than 4,500 low-income family members who use the food pantries centered in Allison Park, Bellevue and Millvale.Wolf, who wrote the grant application, said, "Our goal is to improve nutrition in local children by encouraging them to eat more fruits and vegetables and to build leadership skills in young people."She added that the initial grant that NHCO received from the Grable Foundation in 2013 "…allowed NHCO to introduce an educational component to our organic garden by creating educational materials in the garden and performing outreach in local schools designed to teach children and teens more about organic gardening and the importance of including fruits and vegetables in their daily diets. This grant will be used to continue to provide these educational opportunities to area young people."Successful projects completed in the past two years greatly increased the amount of crops produced in the garden and provided new opportunities for ecological education to young people. The current grant will be used for youth initiatives and education outreach, including gardening and nutrition education in the garden, where school groups and youth groups come to volunteer and learn about nutrition, how to grow and harvest food in a natural way, and how the urban garden has an impact on hunger in our communities. Younger children are instructed in such topics as how to garden, why vegetables and fruit are an important part of a healthy diet, and why bugs and worms are important to a garden.The grant also will provide ecological education in the schools through educational presentations and seed starting projects where students grow organic seedlings to be planted in the garden come spring. It also will enable the employment of "youth leaders" in the garden who develop leadership skills by assisting the garden coordinator with all operations of the garden, including children's programming and volunteer projects.Alyssa Crawford, garden and youth coordinator for NHCO, said that this year's garden has met the challenges of too much rain followed by too much heat. "We're averaging 100 lbs. of tomatoes per week and we've picked close to 300 lbs. of peaches" --- just two of the many products raised in the garden.The Sirianni family would be very pleased to know how their donated land is being used to help others. About the Author Tom Steiner