By Ron Calhoun

Food Strong is a local nonprofit organization with a focus on teaching youth and families how to become more self-sufficient and on improving overall wellness in the community. We go to schools in the Cities of Cleveland and East Cleveland and build raised beds with the students. The students design, plant and maintain their own food and flower gardens. They harvest vegetables as they become ripe, and taste the difference from those vegetables which come from the grocery store.

The goal of this program is to kindle a love of gardening within these children with the hopes they will garden for years to come. All of our garden curricula emphasize STEM, art, nutrition, environment, and community stewardship. We also have a Learning Garden at East Cleveland’s Coit Road Urban Farm, adjacent to the Coit Road Farmers Market. We host field trips, workshops, tours, and a variety of sessions for all ages. We place a heavy emphasis on youth development and family engagement. We are currently offering a series of free workshops around gardening, nutrition, entrepreneurship, STEM, and the arts. The last workshop of the season will be held on Wednesday, August 4 from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m.

Our Care Strong Project provides hunger center clients with health screenings and nutrition information. Our goal is to inspire clients to treat food as medicine as a manner of preventing, managing, and reversing chronic disease. We pay our clients with coupons to spend at the Coit Road Farmers Market. We also offer healthy cooking demonstrations.

Our Care-A-Van program brings wrap around wellness resources, cooking education, music, art, and more to farmers’ markets. Our goal is to foster access to and utilization of fresh, local foods and wellness resources while supporting local businesses.

Join us at our fundraising gala on September 23 at the Veranda at Lago Custom Event on the East Bank of the Flats! More information is available on our website: https://www.foodstrong.org/

Sign up for text messaging to stay informed about our programs. Text GARDENS to 33222.