It pays to dream big.
Kyria Virschelle, who leads an urban gardening program for youth in St. Louis, thought it would be great if youth in her organization could travel to other cities nationwide to learn about other gardening programs and to also meet First Lady Michelle Obama, who has planted a garden at the White House.
Virschelle connected with an official with the St. Louis Community Credit Union, who had a good relationship with the U.S. Treasury Department, which has connections to the Obamas. The credit union is a supporter of the gardening program.
“She (bank official) came and saw the kids and the garden and made some calls,” said Virschelle, who is the director of Meltdown Mondays with the Hip Hop Initiative, whose mission is teach children from kindergarten through 12th grade about fitness and nutrition. The program is through the Mark Twain Resource Center.
Virschelle’s dream will become a reality on Friday when she, 30 of her students, their family members and youth from other cities will take a six-day nationwide bus tour of urban gardening sites that will include a visit to the White House where they will meet Michelle Obama and garden with her, White House staff, and students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington, D.C.
Students from the Sow Unique Garden Clubs, which is a St. Louis CAN program, also will go to Washington. The trip is titled, “Champions 4 Sustainable Change Tour.”
The total cost of the trip is $30,000 and has been offset by numerous donors, supporters and fundraisers, Virschelle said. Parents were asked to pay $150. It costs about $983 per person.
“This is a once in a lifetime experience for me,” said 12-year-old Danielle Nunn as she prepared to work in the garden at Barrett Brothers Park, located at the corner of Goodfellow Boulevard and St. Louis Avenue. The group maintains five other gardens and works with about 150 children.
Danielle’s grandmother, Lonnie Nunn, will be traveling with her.
“My granny never thought she could have an experience like this in her lifetime,” said Danielle. “It’s pretty interesting.”
In addition to meeting Michelle Obama, the students will be joined by other students who are participating in urban community gardens that are supported by Urban Farming, a non-profit group that lends support to the Hip Hop Initiative’s gardening project. Urban Farming students from Chicago, Minneapolis, Detroit, New York and New Jersey will join the youth from St. Louis for the tour. Urban Farming headquarters is in Detroit. The youth will visit three urban farming community gardens during their tour. They will also tour biofuel projects and look at cities that highlight renewable energy.
Michael Nelson, director of partnership for Urban Farming St. Louis, said the tour is a way of getting youth interested in green jobs early.
Nelson said the tour will expose St. Louis’ youth to other communities and provide them with an opportunity to showcase what they have learned.
Dajha Adams, 12, said she planted corn, cucumbers, carrots and romaine lettuce at the garden in Barrett Brothers Park and she learned how to plant and water. But she also learned about patience. “You gotta be patient to let it come up and you can’t just pull out anything, thinking everything is a weed, because it’s not,” Dajha said.
Twenty-second Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd said the garden, which is located in his Ward, represents the community and government working together. Through funding he secured through the Community Block Grant program, the garden’s irrigation system was installed, the City’s Forestry Department delivers mulch every week; and the Human Development Corporation provides a bus that daily transports the youth to and from Barrett Brothers Park, Boyd said. “The Hip-Hop Health Initiative is truly a community collaborative that we can all be proud of,” Boyd said. “These young people have shown that youth can make positive contributions to our community if they are properly supported.”
Nelson said the next step for the gardening project here is to have students plant crops that can be used for other purposes other than for consumption. He said older youth will grow cotton and pumpkins on “experimental farms” and determine what they can produce from those crops.
He likened the work to that of George Washington Carver who found several uses for the peanut.
“Growing crops can produce products other than food,” he said. “As long as the sun burns, we’ll be able to grow things and it will be an inexhaustible source of products of food and energy.”
