Portsmouth, OH: Shawnee State University (SSU) is thrilled to be hosting three AmeriCorps*VISTA Summer Associates this year and partnering with Ohio Campus Compact and the Portsmouth Pantry Garden (PPG). Joshua Aeh, Sarah Bachman, and Mason Bradbury have been selected to serve as the Summer Associates for this project and will be working to strengthen and expand the capacity of the Portsmouth Pantry Garden to provide fresh, healthy produce to individuals and families in need in the Portsmouth community through the distribution of harvested food to local food pantries.
Portsmouth is located in Scioto County where over 20% of the population lives below the poverty line and in a 2003 report, it was found that 37.3% of the Southwest Ohio population was overweight and 23% was obese. The two major risk factors for obesity are a sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy eating habits. Many people have started recognizing these causal relationships and are choosing to buy healthier food such as local, organic produce, and are avoiding high fructose corn syrup and other food by-products. Unfortunately, many families in the Portsmouth area do not have the financial resources available to them to make these decisions and their diets are often dictated by what is available to them at food pantries.
The Portsmouth Pantry Garden, sitting at just under 1/2 acre of land (and over 20 different types of fruits, vegetables, and flowers) donated by the City of Portsmouth, seeks to provide a way for pantry clients to have access to fresh, pesticide-free produce and also offer the opportunity for families to take a more active role in the food they are receiving such as volunteering or even just visiting the garden. The Summer Associates will provide recipe cards with each item of produce distributed with ingredients that clients would likely receive at a pantry to create healthy, well-balanced meals.
Aeh, Bachman, and Bradbury will also be supervising the court-appointed community service workers that are assigned to PPG, a facet of the project that is already blossoming beyond what we had anticipated. While some of the workers have said that they learned something new while being at the garden, others have reflected that 'it really felt good to give back to the community'.
Finally, the SA VISTAs will be working to develop pantry relations, both by hosting an information table about PPG during Pantry distribution hours, but also they will hold a canning demonstration at both partner pantry sites to help teach sustainability.
Below are links to articles about the project:
Here is our Facebook page, but you must be logged in to view it:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/group.php?gid=130331440310693
I couldn't be happier to be apart of this!
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful endeavor! I am very proud of all that you are accomplishing and will do everything I can to let the public know.
ReplyDeleteWe will also be on the radio talking about our project on Friday July 2nd from 8:00-9:00 a.m. WNXT 1260 AM--Portsmouth, OH.
ReplyDeleteHey! This is Laura Finck, one of the SA VISTAs from Marietta College. I am working with a summer camp and we are also going to make recipe cards for the local food pantry. I would love to collaborate on this if you're interested!
ReplyDelete