The Elon Academy recently received a grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund to provide financial support for Elon University students to work with high school students in the Elon Community Garden through a gardening class.
The grant, which includes more than $169,000 from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Student Science Enrichment Program, allows students to take a first hand look at growing food and the nutritional value it holds, according to Deborah Long, director of the Elon Academy.
Long said she noticed the lack of nutrition in high school students and recognized many students live in what she calls “food deserts” — a problem compounded by busy families who don’t have time to cook.
“Food deserts are areas where there isn’t a lot of opportunity for students to get nutritional food,” Long said. “So they go to the local mini-mart or gas station and eat a lot of processed foods.”
The grant allows for hands-on education for students to transform how they look at and think about their food, Long said. Students will be engaged in learning about how to grow their food, the nutritive properties it holds and about a variety of topics from companion crops to how certain plants repel insects, according to Long.
“We wanted to do something more impactful than lecturing about the nutritional value of food,” Long said. “This way the students become involved in the process, and we hope to get their families and the community involved as well.”
Long said she hopes the garden could some day become an educational garden for the community to come learn about what’s grown there. Furthermore, she said she hopes for students’ families to work alongside them.
The process of being involved in how food is grown gets students thinking about their food and often allows them to enjoy healthy foods, Long said. “We’re finding that a lot of the time students just automatically assume they don’t like a certain fruit or vegetable,” Long said. “But then they get in the garden and grow it and cultivate it, and they end up enjoying something they never thought they would.”
The grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund will provide three years of funding for Elon Academy students to be engaged in the garden, and the Elon Academy can re-apply for the grant after the initial three years.
The gardening class is one of 10 classes offered by the academy every year, and the grant provides funds for purchasing necessary items to be used in the garden and for the payment of student workers.
So far the grant has been used for class purposes, including purchasing gloves for everyone to use in the garden and buying a refrigerator to put in the building that will house Elon Hillel. The new kitchen will store foods that have been grown in the local garden.
“This is a win for everybody,” Long said. “We’re able to provide things that everybody needs with the grant, and it proves that even though Elon Academy is small, the impact is huge.”