5763_SCA_Cody_Sanders

BCFN Young Earth Solutions YES!

Farming Feeds Abstract: Farming Feeds in a program that dedicates itself to raising awareness on the important role agriculture plays in the fight against hunger. We believe that feeding people is great; however, we believe giving people an opportunity to feed themselves is even better. Through our program, we look to allow our nation's adolescents the opportunity to cultivate their minds and bodies, and allow them to produce their own crop in an educational environment. We will challenge these students to not let their efforts stop once the school bell rings. Instead, we want to send them home with the proper equipment in order to plant their own gardens at home, and harvest nourishing vegetation that results in healthy meals on the table.

We look to lower hunger statistics, as well as stop the rise in childhood obesity through the multiple benefits of Farming Feeds. We realize we were extremely blessed to break bread with our family. We also believe in our University Creed that tells us to, 'Believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with our fellow men;' Therefore, we believe in giving others this opportunity as well.

Author

Cody Sanders William Hester Bobby Douglas

Farming Feeds When I arrived in college, I would have never thought that in two years, my biggest passion would be joining the war against hunger. As a kid who had a hot meal, three times a day, accompanied by a family that grew in to love and know each other around the dinner table. As most kids that are fortunate are, I was not nearly gracious enough for the blessing of fellowship with nourishing food that I had been given. I was simply just not aware of how serious of an epidemic that hunger and malnourishment was in the world, much less in my own community. However, it was those sacred homemade meals that I missed the most when I arrived on campus, and those times in which I broke bread with my family that led to my passion for fighting hunger and the idea for our project in the Young Earth Solutions competition.

In 1998, the United States Congress passed a bill expanding the free or low-cost lunch program to children up to age eighteen. In 2011, this led to over 31 million children receiving one of these free or low-cost lunches daily. However, school is only still five days a week, and with the economy in its current shape, more and more school days are being eliminated from the calendar in order to make ends meet in the budget; each day that is cut is another day a child could go without a meal. When these youth go home, there is far too often no food in the pantry or refrigerator. How do we expect these children to concentrate on furthering their educations without nourishment? Or, an even bigger question, how do we expect them to stay in school when they are the only chance for their younger siblings to have a meal that day or even week?

So how do we eliminate this atrocity? Where do we even begin at helping feed a percentage, even if just a sliver on the pie chart, of those 31 million children that struggle with hunger daily? We believe that the solution can be found in the classroom, literally. As three young males who had a Mama at home with a meal waiting on us, our team can appreciate the necessity of sitting around a table with the ones you love and care for. Therefore, we propose a solution called, Farming Feeds. Farming Feeds is a program that goes into school systems and provides students with the opportunity to advance in science by cultivating their own garden with their classmates as well as sparks the interest in continuing the lesson outside of the classroom. Farming Feeds will provide the agricultural necessities in order for students to not only grow a garden as a whole class, but also the necessary seeds and tools to allow children to grow their own individual vegetables at home. The children in the classroom will not only be given an opportunity to see the “fruits of their labor� but also a chance to enjoy them in a tasty and nourishing homemade and homegrown meal.

The benefits of Farming Feeds will not end in the classroom, and neither will the educating factors that it provides. By giving children the necessary tools to make it possible, we can challenge them to prepare the food at home in a healthy meal that is provided in a recipe from the program. With obesity at an all-time high in America, it is important that we take any opportunity we have to share with others the importance of healthy habits. These students will also be given the proper horticultural tools and plant seeds in order to plant their own gardens at home and cultivate memories with their family as well as put meals on the table. Not only that, it also sparks the interest in farming and agriculture. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the

percentage increase on food production is only two percent annually. That is simply just not enough. Farming Feeds believes in teaching and stressing the importance of agriculture to adolescents around the nation and world. If we do not, the horrifying question we now face is-who will? We believe at Farming Feeds that we cannot take that risk, and that it is time we start letting others know the myriad of positive benefits that our idea has to offer. We want every little boy to have the opportunity to be asked how football practice went as he builds stronger muscles with a hot meal in front of him just as us three at Farming Feeds did. We want every middle school girl to be able to walk down the hall comfortably because she has a stomach full of confidence that came from a nourishing dinner the night before and a healthy breakfast to start her day. We want to start a whole new way people look at food, and we believe it starts in the classroom and around the dinner table.

My team finds the phrase, “A family that breaks bread together, stays together,” could not be truer, and we take that to heart. We believe that feeding people is good, and we believe that giving them the opportunity to feed themselves is even better. We believe in the importance of educating others on hunger, and believe that keeping ourselves educated is the best way to do that. Most importantly, though, we believe in the Auburn University Creed. As students we are taught to remember this line, “We believe in the human touch, which cultivates sympathy with my fellow men.” It is our faith and trust in this line that has led us to believe in the benefits that Farming Feeds has to offer, and the strength and determination to make sure that we continue our fight to allow families to break bread together, again.