I'm currently attending the Food & Society conference right here in San Jose. It's strange and wonderful to be in my own city for an event like this, especially after my recent conference-related travel drama.
The day opened with the Dillard Charter Academy's elementary school choir singing a retooled rendition of Old McDonald. Imagine 16 grammar school kids in identical lemon-colored tops harmonizing to these words:
Dillard Academy has a garden, E-I-E-I-O
And in this garden we have some veggies, E-I-E-I-O
With beans here, corn there
Here cukes, eggplants, everywhere peppers, peppers
Dillard Academy has a garden, E-I-E-I-O
Mid-song, one pint sized vocalist seized the mike to rap a rhythmic ode to mustard greens and kale. Don't laugh. It may seem silly, but it roused the room of 500+ food policy experts, academics, and foundation heads to its feet multiple times.
Cheryl Alston, Dillon's garden curriculum coordinator, started the program as an afterschool enrichment initiative that soon spiraled into something more. Now students in kindergarten through 4th grade participate in garden-centered activities at the Goldsboro, North Carolina school. Props to their choir director, Daniel Hooper, for doing such a great job with these confident kids and allowing them to shine.
And before you assume that because they're singing about kale these kids attend a hoity-toity school, a look at Dillard's website suggests otherwise. There's an on-site food pantry on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a mobile dental lab, and a foster grandparent program that provides consistent TLC to "enhance the mental, physical, social, and emotional growth of [the] children." Social services vouchers are accepted as payment for the after-school program.
So you may look at my photo and see a simple bowl of greens.
After listening to these kids today, I see a whole lot more.
