Claymont Boys & Girls Club plant seeds to build a healthier future

The Claymont Boys & Girls Club planted a fruit garden with the Yellow Tractor Program, as part of a new project to help teach kids how to live healthier lifestyles.

This month, the youth got down and dirty, as they uprooted soil to drop in a cherry, peach and apples trees.

“I like growing trees, because it helps our environment look better than what it is,” said Kayla Ssendikwanawana, a 10-year-old from Stoney Brook.

Ellen McLean, the director of operations for the Boys and Girls Club of Delaware, said the children had a blast building the garden, while learning the value of hard work.

“They were excited,” she said. “It's good for them to learn that something is worthwhile and it takes hard work.”

At the end of the day, the youth added 23 new fruit plants and fruit trees, including 10 blackberry bushes and 10 raspberry bushes, according to McLean.

Amy Fox, director of the Yellow Tractor Program, said she was thrilled to teach the kids how to garden.

“I liking it to teaching a man how to fish,” Fox said. “If they can learn how to grow their own food, they will be more capable of doing other things on their own.”

Yellow Tractor is a non-profit organization based in Virginia that is dedicated to creating and facilitating the use of vegetable gardens for school-age children, Fox said.

She said the project has been in the works since last year, after she connected with the Boys & Girls Club.

As a result, Delaware Physicians Care, who has shared a longtime relationship with the Boys & Girls Club in Delaware, recognized the project had lot of potential to influence the youth to eat healthier in the Claymont, said Jeanne Walsh, communications manager with the medical organization. And recognizing that youth at the Boys & Girls Club in Smyrna and Seaford could benefit from a garden, too, the company funded Yellow Tractor to build gardens at all three sites, Walsh said.

Delaware Physicians, which is a division of AETNA Medicaid, donated $10,500 to Yellow Tractor to cover the cost of all three projects, she said. The funds also cover the cost of a vegetable garden that Fox will plant at each site, beginning in spring of 2011.

“It's significant that we focus our efforts on children,” Walsh said. “We thought the program could be a good fit, so we sponsored Yellow Tractor.”

Walsh said today's children are exposed to more illnesses and diseases, at a younger age, than that of previous generations. While some adults used to catch type-two diabetes after the age of 30, today's youth are showing signs of this disease at 10 years old, she said.

Part of the cause is due to the cost of fruit and the convenience of eating fast food.

“It's easier to stop at McDonalds on the way to school,” Walsh said.

Nancy Gill, program director of the Claymont site, said the club is planning to launch a new cooking program in 2011 that will help to teach kids how to cook healthy meals.

Jayson Cortes, 10, said he looks forward to eating healthier foods, as the garden build has encouraged him to lay off junk food.

“I want to plant more stuff and not eat anymore fast food,” he said.