Sharon Aguilar said her 15-year-old brother likes to eat
fast food, but she wants something better for herself and her
1-year-old daughter, Isabel.
So she is learning to buy and cook
fresh food. She is even trying to grow lettuce in a little plot outside
her family's apartment, although a rabbit seems to be getting most of
it.
Aguilar, 18, read recently that she and her peers might not
live as long as their parents because of poor nutrition. "I don't want
that for my daughter," she said. "Maybe I can make things different
for her generation."
Aguilar's interest in nutrition was sparked
by Plant to Plate, a service project organized by members of this year's
class of Leadership Lexington. The 33-year-old leadership development
program, sponsored by Commerce Lexington, helps local professionals
become more familiar with different aspects of the community.
"We
started out with the idea of trying to do something with gardening,
nutrition and students," said class member Kenneth Gish, an attorney
with the firm Stites & Harbison.
In the process of exploring
options, the class discovered Lexington's Family Care Center, which
provides education and social services to try to help families become
self-sufficient. Its programs include an alternative high school for
young mothers and pregnant teens.
Leadership Lexington class
members spent the fall and winter organizing Plant to Plate and
enlisting the help of people and companies to make it happen. They
launched the effort in February with a series of presentations for the
girls about nutrition, shopping for food and gardening. They were given
by dietician Judy Lawson, Alexa Arnold of the Lexington Farmers Market
and organic farmer Sandy Canon.
Several of the school's two dozen
students got to attend the Bluegrass Local Food Summit, organized each
March by community garden activist Jim Embry. "He's my role model now,"
Aguilar said.
Leadership Lexington class members helped the girls
plant container gardens in the Family Care Center's courtyard using
half bourbon barrels donated by Buffalo Trace Distillery, soil given by
Southern States, plants and tools from Fayette Seed, compost from
Gunston Farms and garden hoses from Chevy Chase Hardware.
"It
has been great to see the willingness of people in the community to get
involved in this," Gish said. "It was a fun process."
The day I visited, the girls were getting lessons in healthy cooking from Jeremy Ashby, executive chef at Azur restaurant in Beaumont Centre, and Sylvia Lovely, the restaurant's owner. They do a radio show about food, Sunny Side Up, each Saturday at 11 a.m. on WLAP-630 AM.
"One
of the things we want to talk about is that local is better," Ashby
said as he told of good sources for locally grown food. He taught the
students to properly cut vegetables and prepare a simple but delicious
meal of almond-crusted chicken, carrots sautéed with thyme, corn bread,
and macaroni and cheese.
Aguilar said she had never been a fan of
broccoli, but she still might try the mac-and-cheese recipe at home.
Her daughter already likes fresh vegetables better than she does, she
admitted.
"It's not as hard as I thought it was to eat healthy,"
she said when asked what she has learned. "And it tastes better. I don't
like canned spinach, but I like fresh spinach."
Plant to Plate
has made a difference, said Joanna Rodes, director of the Family Care
Center, which is run by the city's Division of Family Services.
"I'm
pleasantly surprised at how much they have enjoyed it," she said of
the students. "I hear them talking more about cooking at home and making
healthy choices for their children."
Rodes hopes to build on many
aspects of the Plant to Plate experience, from cooking classes to
growing vegetables. But it will take more volunteer efforts from
individuals, companies or groups like Leadership Lexington.
"We've lost a lot of resources," she said. "So we just can't do it without people who want to do good things."
For
one thing, Rodes said, the students' excitement about container
gardening makes her think a much larger garden on the center's grounds
could be successful — if volunteers were willing to help.
"I feel that we could take any of these avenues and go 100 miles," she said.
Tom Eblen: (859) 231-1415. Email: teblen@herald-leader.com. Twitter: @tomeblen. Blog: tomeblen.bloginky.com.
