Students help with new garden

Monte Vista Elementary School has a new school garden thanks to the help of La Semilla Food Center, Paso del Norte Health Foundation (PNHF) said in a news release. La Semilla received a grant from Paso del Norte’s Healthy Eating Initiative, which will provide gardening, nutrition and cooking training to at least 1,500 students, teachers and families in El Paso and Doña Ana County, PNHF said.

Students of all grades at Monte Vista Elementary put on their gardening gloves and participated in shoveling, raking and using a wheel barrel to fill beds with soil, PNHF said. They learned to create irrigation pods and planted herbs, flowers and trees. For their hard work, students took turns on a bike blender, making watermelon smoothies as a refreshment for all.

“As a Healthy Eating initiative grantee, La Semilla’s Edible Education program connects the garden experience to classroom cooking experiences where children taste the fruits of their labor and involve families through garden beautification days,” said PDHF Senior Program Officer Jana Renner. “La Semilla has worked with 40 schools in the Paso del Norte region to install gardens and train teachers to incorporate gardening and cooking into their classrooms.”

PNHF was established in 1995 from the sale of Providence Memorial Hospital to Tenet Healthcare Corporation. The foundation “seeks to ensure that the people living in far west Texas, southern New Mexico and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico have the knowledge, resources, and skills to lead healthy lives,” the

Visit lasemillafoodcenter.org and pdnhf.org.