Harvest party planned for WVSU kids’ community garden

10/15/2013

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Contact: Jenny Totten
(304) 356-1171
williaml@wvstateu.edu
     
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. – Young participants in West Virginia State University (WVSU) Extension Service’s SCRATCH (Sustainable Community Revitalization in Appalachia Through Children’s Hands) Project will reap the fruits – and vegetables – of their labor with a harvest party Sunday, Oct. 20, from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Maudella Taylor Garden in Huntington.

The event is open to the public and will include a taste testing of garden herbs and vegetables, pumpkin decorating, and a make-and-take fall planter demonstration.

"The harvest party is a fun time for our participants to show off all that they've learned this summer,” said coordinator Jenny Totten, a VISTA volunteer with WVSU Extension Service. “We are featuring projects and items from all of our sites so our neighbors can see what these kids have learned and achieved."  

The SCRATCH Project launched in 2011 to bring more locally grown and healthy food into Huntington by educating youth about gardening and sustainability. Kid-based community gardens are functional throughout the city at the Maudella Taylor site, the Barnett Center, the A.D. Lewis Community Center and a recently established site at Spring Hill Elementary School.

WVSU Extension Service staff provides program direction and education, while partner agencies provide resources such as technology and education about nutrition and business. One goal of the project is to have the kids become young entrepreneurs, with their produce being sold to local restaurants and shops.

The Maudella Taylor Garden is located at 1448 11^th Avenue, in Huntington.

West Virginia State University is a public, land grant, historically black university, which has evolved into a fully accessible, racially integrated, and multi‐generational institution, located in Institute, W.Va. As a “living laboratory of human relations,” the university is a community of students, staff, and faculty committed to academic growth, service and preservation of the racial and cultural diversity of the institution. Its mission is to meet the higher education and economic development needs of the state and region through innovative teaching and applied research.