Watch: Massachusetts Elementary School Gets New School Garden Through National Grant

By Sy Becker,  WWLP

Springfield, MA – When students attending Springfield’s Edward P. Boland Elementary School return to class after April vacation, they’ll start planting a variety of healthy foods.

It’s the work of the FoodCorps/AmeriCorps advocacy group in Springfield.

Twenty-four-year-old Kali Ransom secured a healthy food grant from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. Sodexo is the Springfield Schools’ food supplier.

“My goal, my mission is just to get the kids excited about food,” Ransom explained. “So we have hands-on lessons in the garden, make them excited about food, make them try new things.”

Ransom’s healthy eating project immediately impressed Boland School Principal Lisa Bakowski.

“Our second graders are involved with planting a garden and will be involved with harvesting it,” Bakowski told 22News. “With so much food insecurity, it’s such a wonderful opportunity for our students to become self-sufficient.”

With constant nurturing by the students, once they start planting later this month, the FoodCorps hopes to see the fruits of their labor by the time the children return to school in the fall.

It’s a healthy food project being seeded by a grant of less than a $1,000.