We Need a Tractor!

Paradise Greetings,

If you are reading this and you live near Indian River County, Florida and you own a tractor you are no longer using, call me! Parcels of land are being donated to Growing Healthy Kids for us to use to grow food and give it away through our childhood obesity work. We now need a tractor to be able to get the land ready to plant in the next 2 months.

We have volunteers, we have land, we have plants and seeds, and we are preparing for the upcoming planting season. We need a tractor!

My cell number is 772 453 3413.

Growing Healthy Kids is improving the health - and lives - of America's kids, one child and one garden at a time.

To your perfect health!
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Seventy Awesome Kids in 2 Days Help Teach the World

Paradise Greetings,

Tonight's Chicks with Checks Party for Dr. Pierone's Haiti medical work had to proceed without Growing Healthy Kids being represented. I'm exhausted and need to recharge my batteries.

Here's the story of 70 awesome kids...This morning I did a summer camp program for 30 children ages 5-17 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission in Fellsmere, Florida. The kids learned to make "F3 shakes" (Fabulous Fellsmere Fruit Shakes) and whole grain grilled pepper quesadillas. We had a snack station and all the kids made their own Smart Snack mix and had a healthy snack to take home, where they are often left by themselves because their parents are working in the citrus fields. We went out into today's blazing heat (it felt like 200 degrees, for real) and ran laps around the Catholic church's parking lot. We jumped rope together (100 was the record!!). We laughed together. We cooked together. We learned together. What a wonderful morning!

Last night the wonderful Anne Devanney from Community Church, our wonderful Growing Healthy Kids volunteers, and I made dinner for the children plus a dozen house parents at Hibiscus Children's Center to celebrate the completion of 8 weeks of the Growing Healthy Kids' healthy eating classes. The rave reviews for Anne's grilled veggie whole grain paninis matched the reviews of the children's garden pesto mixed with whole grain pasta and sundried tomatoes. The children's garden basil is at its flavor peak and dozens of people got to taste it (and yes, the recipe will be in our first Growing Healthy Kids' book). Anne taught the kids how to dry basil so they can learn the process of how to cycle and recycle food without waste.

An amazing two days touching the lives of 70 amazing kids. More successes will be coming from all the seeds that were planted last night and this morning. What we need is coming. What we need to transform the health - and lives - of children is coming.

We are creating food security with partners like the Treasure Coast-Vero Beach Kiwanis Club and the Community Church who are now seeing for themselves the urgency for solutions to the crisis unfolding before our eyes. Children who are overweight pile into the emergency rooms of America's hospitals with adult conditions never before seen in kids.

Let me know what you will bring to the table for Growing Healthy Kids.

Growing Healthy Kids - improving the health - and lives - of America's children, one garden and one child at a time.

To your perfect health.
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Bring on the Veggies! Kid Power!

Paradise greetings,

What a busy week this has been for Growing Healthy Kids. So many veggies to chop. So many salads to make. So many flatbreads to roll. So many kids to get healthy!!!
The pictures you see are from our latest project, in partnership with Kiwanis Club, at Hibiscus Children's Center in Vero Beach. Last week's classes were great and the gardens are growing. The kids were not shy about stepping up to be the master chefs. They learned about reading food labels and how easy it is to make really healthy sandwiches that taste great. We used the "Flatout" breads with 90 calories per flatbread and a whopping 9 grams of dietary fiber! These makes EXCELLENT pizza crusts!!

One girl, watching the other kids chop yellow and red peppers, tomatoes, spinach, and English cucumbers, asked if I'd brought any "lunch meats" for the sandwiches. I told her I didn't, but she could make the rollups with her favorite meats. When she decided to make a rollup with the ingredients provided for the class, she had a bite, smiled and said the best thing ever, "This is GOOD!"

Focus on making one small change a week. Make this week's change to eat one more fruit or veggie each day.

Growing Healthy Kids is about improving the health - and lives - of children, one child and one garden at a time.

To your perfect health!
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids

Four More Gardens for Healthy Kids

Paradise Greetings,

Thank you Growing Healthy Kids and Kiwanis Club volunteers: Katherine, Joe, Lou, Katy and husband. Thank you to Amy and staff at Hibiscus Children's Center. Thank you to all the kids at Hibiscus. You are now the proud owners of four new gardens! What an awesome morning of energy, enthusiasm and sweat equity! We built the gardens, filled them, and planted them. Now, with water, sun, and love the butterflies and vegetables will come!

It is an honor to be able to create some new spaces for the kids at Hibiscus. I'm excited about the butterfly gardens. Within an hour of getting the first butterfly garden installed for the kids, one of the boys came running over to me and exclaimed that he'd just seen his first butterfly!

When I was there yesterday for our first healthy cooking class, most of the seeds had germinated and were already a couple of inches high. Our first lesson was that fruit is a healthy snack, not fruit juice. Now to teach the adults who serve those children...

It is fun to play in the dirt! The adventure continues! What is YOUR favorite butterfly?

Growing Healthy Kids - improving the health - and lives of children, one garden and one child at a time.

To your perfect health!
Nancy Heinrich
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids