The 4-H Food Club at the Ingham Family Center will be building on the gardening skills learned by the students last year where they planted and maintained a large garden and consumed over 300 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables. This is thanks to a $10,000 grant from Michigan State University Extension 4-H that will allow the program to expand the garden, build a chicken coop, and add a hoop house this spring. The 4-H Food Club began meeting again in January to teach youth who attend the Ingham Academy about caring for chickens and plants.
In the upcoming months, court-involved youth who attend the Ingham Academy will be building a chicken coop and hoop house on the south side of Lansing thanks to this grant. This summer the club plans to sell their food products to the community as a way to learn business skills and earn money to pay for program sustainability. The grant also funded two paid work study positions for Ingham Academy students. In March the student workers will start doing research and planning related to the program’s expansion and to prepare them to be peer mentors.
The 4-H Food Club program got its start last summer as a result of a partnership between Ingham County MSU Extension, Ingham County Family Center, and The Lansing Garden Project. The garden was such a success in 2009 an AmeriCorps member was added to coordinate the program through the Power of We Consortium and the program partners started seeking funds to expand the garden in size and the diversity of products able to be produced.
If you would like more information about this 4-H program, please contact Stephanie Reuter at 517.676.7300 or sreuter@ingham.org.
