Kyrstin Marien, a student at Eastern Connecticut State University, has been working hard this semester with a community organization called Grow Windham. Grow Windham is "a collaboration of community partners dedicated to promoting healthy food in the Windham region through support of community gardens, food projects, and food- and garden-based youth programming and engagement" (
www.growwindham.org).
For Kyrstin, her involvement in Grow Windham started with an assignment for her Geography of Food class where she has to do a total of 15 hours of community service throughout the semester. This led her to Max Goto, the Center for Community Engagement's AmeriCorps VISTA and event coordinator. Max was able to match Kyrstin's interests in the topics of health and nutrition, with a community organization and it has turned out to be a perfect fit!
Kyrstin believes that GROW Windham is a "fantastic program." She describes it as an organization that is serving Windham by working on the food issues that the town is facing. She says that they are "very active in the community and the community gradens", and what makes them such a great program is the fact that they "engage the community in whatever project they are working on". They are involved with the Food Coop and have programs at the elementary, middle and high school levels. "Everyone I have worked with is so passionate which makes me passionate about it!"
Through this organization, Kyrstin has helped out at the Lauter Park community garden on Fridays with other student volunteers from both Eastern and UCONN. She has also helped out with the Windham Farmer's Market with a group of students from Windham High School. For the Farmer's Market, she has to be there at 7am! Although this is early, Kyrstin says that the high school kids still have fun and they really enjoy what they are doing. All the food they sell at the market comes from the community gardens and everything that does not sell goes directly to the soup kitchen.
The high school program started off as a summer program and is now an after school type program. With the time Kyrstin has spent with these students, she has noticed huge, positive changes in them. Kyrstin likes the fact that GROW Windham is "targeting students and creating a postive healthy lifestyle at a young age." This program not only encourages kids to choose healthier food options, but it gives them the reasons as to why this is important.
If you are interested in reading more about GROW Windham and their programs, you can visit
www.growwindham.org.
This past Spring Break proved to be an educational and influential adventure for the eight Eastern students who participated in the Alternative Spring Break: Generous Gardens Project in Greenville, South Carolina. The Generous Gardens Project is a nonprofit organization that grows, harvests, and delivers fresh food, as a healthy alternative to canned and boxed food, to people who are in need. They also educate individuals on how to create and maintain fresh produce gardens in a sustainable way. South Carolina is ranked ninth in the highest population of hungry people in the United States. Hunger is a very real and significant issue in our world today and the Generous Garden Project works to end the struggle of hunger in the healthiest way possible. "It is a known fact that if people get fresh fruits and veggies in their diet, they think more clearly, have more energy and live more fruitful lives. We are here to fight hunger one garden at a time."
The students drove 11 hours down to Trinity Church in Travelers Rest, South Carolina where they resided for the week. Everyday from 8am until about 3:30pm the volunteers worked hard planting seeds, making compostable flower pots, making garden beds and laying down leaves, feeding chickens and gather their eggs, sifting through compost, making labels for plants, and harvesting lettuce. Students learned the ins and outs of gardening and volunteering at a community based garden. The volunteers were able to incorporate the fresh produce from the gardens into their daily meals, which was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip for most of the volunteers. This spring break, however, was not all work and no play, one day was spent exploring the city of Greenville, hiking through Paris Mountain and dining at a local Hibachi. 
Student Leader Lily Egan commented on her experience at the Generous Gardens Project: "I would never have imagined doing anything else during this spring break. It was truly an honor to be able to work with such open-minded and hard working people. On thing I learned through working at the Generous Gardens Project was that in order to grow you must learn, and in order to learn you must be willing to grow, just like in college and just like a plant."
