‘Health’ Archives
ReThink Your Drink, Every Sip Counts! Backyard Initiative and the Minneapolis Health Department Partnership
BY ANDRE GRAHAM, BYI TEENS Project The Minneapolis Health Department (MHD) launched the ReThink Your Drink, Every Sip Counts! campaign to encourage people and places to choose healthier beverages over sugary drinks. MHD partnered with several community organizations to help raise awareness about the link between frequent sugary drink consumption and negative health effects to help to promote healthier beverage options. One of these partners was the Backyard Initiative (BYI). During the summer, MHD worked with ten organizations that serve youth with the goal of empowering youth to become sugary drink experts and healthier beverage ambassadors. As a result, they worked directly with the BYI Teens Entering Existing Networking Systems (TEENS) Project. The BYI TEENS Project specializes in youth engagement and sharing resources with community youth so the partnership was a perfect fit. Because this was the first formal partnership between the BYI and MHD, it was somewhat of an [...]
THE BACKYARD GROWS FOOD!
by Cherry Flowers, Growing the Backyard CHAT Introduction to this Special Feature: Growing the Backyard Community Health Action Team (CHAT), one of ten CHATS of the Backyard Initiative (BYI), encourages and celebrates the growing of culturally relevant foods and medicinal herbs in the Backyard neighborhoods. What better way to encourage growing than to honor those who are already growing food and provide resources for those who wish to join the movement?! A number of gardens located in the Backyard are featured in the article below and on pages 6 and 7 of this issue. The Growing the Backyard CHAT did our very best to connect to as many gardens in the BYI area as we know about. They have various missions and what they do with their produce may vary as well. While each is unique, they are connected by the commonly held belief: “fresh produce, picked and eaten minutes and steps from where it is produced is fresher and higher in nutrients than produce from any other source”. [...]
COMMUNITY GARDENS IN THE AREA OF THE BACKYARD INITIATIVE: (A partial listing)
Growing the backyard container demonstration garden by the Cultural Wellness Center designed and maintained by Tim Page. Photo credit: Cherry Flowers Cultural Wellness Center Garden 2020 Oakland Ave Contact: Tim Page, 651-271-3795, tpage4@gmail.com As part of the Backyard Initiative, this site is organized by Tim Page, project lead of Growing the Backyard CHAT and co-owner of Page & Flowers/Holistic Health Farms. It is designed to demonstrate produce container gardening for people who may have limited access to the land needed for an “in ground” garden or for places where the soil is poor or contaminated. We have also found that it is possible to grow more food in less space by arranging the planters in a block without walkways because you can always move them if you need to. This also saves water since you can water just the plants and not the walkways! Vegetables are planted in individual pots or raised beds including a number of Garden-In-A-Box containers [...]
