Kale is Cool | Civil Eats

Kale is Cool

“Stir-fried kale. They ate it. All of it. Gone,” Aziza Malik, Healthy City Kids Coordinator, says in proud amazement of teens eating the kale they harvested that day.

At Burlington, Vermont’s Intervale Center, the Healthy City kids program is growing more than veggies. Twenty-five teens gain hands on experience in community food security: growing and harvesting vegetables from a five-acre farm for neighborhood nonprofits and for the Burlington School Food Project, a model farm to school program.

The Healthy City youth farm started working with the Burlington school district in 2003 with the first products headed to the cafeteria in 2004. The bounty for the school district includes basil, tomatoes, kale, chard, green beans, broccoli, zucchini, as well as other veggies.

Watch this amazing brief video of the program. Kudos to Eva Sollberger for her great coverage and capturing palpable hope and happiness in the fields.

Maybe you’ll grow some too by watching.

newsmatch 2023 banner - donate to support civil eats

Video courtesy of Seven Days


We’ll bring the news to you.

Get the weekly Civil Eats newsletter, delivered to your inbox.

Debra Eschmeyer, Co-Founder and Program Director of FoodCorps, Farmer, and Communications and Outreach Director of the National Farm to School Network, has 15 years of farming and sustainable food system experience. Working from her organic farm in Ohio, Debra oversees the FoodCorps program development for service members working on school gardens and Farm to School while deciphering policy and building partnerships to strengthen the roots of FoodCorps. She also manages a national media initiative on school gardens, farmers’ markets and healthy corner stores. Read more >

Like the story?
Join the conversation.

  1. anne haskel
    Fantastic.

More from

General

Featured

Volunteers from DTE Energy pack prepackaged boxes for delivery to churches and homebound seniors at Focus: HOPE, a local agency located in Detroit, Michigan that operates the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) in a client choice model so that participants can select the foods they want. (Photo credit: Preston Keres, USDA)

The Government Spends Billions on Food. Who Benefits?

In this week’s Field Report: A push to improve federal food purchasing heats up, the first food-focused COP kicks off, dust storms accelerate, and new evidence suggests that fair-trade certifications are failing to protect farmworkers.

Popular

With Season 2, ‘High on the Hog’ Deepens the Story of the Nation’s Black Food Traditions

Stephen Satterfield and Jessica B. Harris watching the sunset at the beach, in a still from Netflix's High on the Hog Season 2. (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

Building a Case for Investment in Regenerative Agriculture on Indigenous Farms

Jess Brewer gathers livestock at Brewer Ranch on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. (Photo courtesy of Intertribal Agriculture Council, www.indianag.org)

Walmart and EDF Forged an Unlikely Partnership. 17 Years Later, What’s Changed?

Aerial view of cargo containers, semi trailers, industrial warehouse, storage building and loading docks, renewable energy plants, Bavaria, Germany

Relocalizing the Food System to Fight a ‘Farm-Free Future’