Produce grown by students at Stonewall Jackson Youth Development Center is helping to feed the homebound of Cabarrus County.
A special partnership to donate the vegetables grown as part of the youth development center’s horticulture program sprouted in October between Cabarrus County Meals on Wheels, the youth development center and 100 Gardens LLC, a Charlotte-based initiative working to connect the area community to struggling communities in Haiti. Sam Fleming from 100 Gardens modeled this partnership upon a similar collaboration in Charlotte between Friendship Trays and Friendship Gardens.
Weekly donations of vegetables began in October; to date, the YDC has donated 160 pounds of produce to the Cabarrus Meals on Wheels program. Donations will restart in the February/March timeframe, as the growing season gets underway. Terry Thomas, Jackson YDC’s career specialist, says that in 2015 the horticulture program aims to donate 2,000 lbs. of produce.
“This partnership is a win for everyone,” Thomas said. “The horticulture students harvest and package the vegetables for Meals on Wheels, and so they know all their hard work is going to a good cause. The Meals on Wheels program is excited about the quality of our produce, with the increased nutritional content it provides for their customers.”
The aquaponics and horticultural program at Jackson YDC results from a continuing effort to enhance career technical education in the state’s youth development centers. The program combines horticulture, food production, microeconomics and science education. The classes began in January 2013 in collaboration with Rowan-Cabarrus Community College and 100 Gardens, whose goal is to establish 66 educational aquaponic systems in schools across the Charlotte region and connect them with 33 high-yield versions that are shipped to and installed in Haiti. In March 2014, 100 Gardens took over operation of the program at the YDC.
Aquaponics is a sustainable food production system that creates an interdependent environment for fish and plants. It combines conventional aquaculture (raising fish in tanks) with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water). Instead of discarding the tank water after waste from the fish builds up and becomes toxic for the fish, the effluent-laden water is led into a hydroponics system. Bacteria in the system break down the waste, and the byproducts are filtered out by the plants as nutrients. Afterward, the cleaned water is recirculated back for use in the fish tanks.
To learn more about the horticulture and aquaponics program at Stonewall Jackson YDC, please contact Peter Brown, director at Stonewall Jackson YDC, at 704-652-4306; or Sam Fleming from 100 Gardens at 704-313-8118 or sam@100gardens.org. To learn more about the Cabarrus Meals on Wheels program, please contact Development Director Bonnie Jones at 704-932-3412 or info@cabarrusmow.org.
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Contact: Diana Kees
Phone: 919-436-3147