Kids grow their own food at Long Island schools

It only takes Marelyn Orozco one bite.

"I feel the health coming into my body," says Marelyn, 8, during a party at Frank J. Cannon Southeast Elementary School in Brentwood. No cupcakes at this shindig — Marelyn and her third-grade classmates eat kale, lettuce, rainbow chard, basil and other greens they’ve grown in a tower in their classroom. There’s salad dressing instead of icing.

The salad party in the school gymnasium is the culmination of a six-week cycle during which students grow produce in a vertical tower in the corner of their classroom. They plant seeds, watch them sprout and examine them as they transform into 28 heads of produce they harvest. The aeroponic tower allows plants to thrive without soil; the plastic , robot-like object morphs into a junglelike tree as the produce blooms in an explosion of greens.

"It teaches the children about the life cycle of the plant and what they need to survive," says their teacher, Sabrina Capasso. "It’s a hands-on experience they get to visualize from the beginning to the end."

‘NO BUGS, NO SOIL, NO WEEDS’

The Brentwood School District started the program with Plant Up, a Holtsville-based business founded by Lety Algeri, a former Commack Middle School teacher who trained in holistic health. Now Plant Up has towers in 19 school districts on Long Island and in nonprofits such as the Winters Center for Autism in West Babylon. The aeroponic system allows plants to grow three times faster than they would in a traditional outdoor soil garden, Algeri says. "The kids ... come in Monday and they can’t believe the growth that happened over the weekend," Algeri says.

Algeri had wanted to introduce organic gardening to schools years ago. "At that point, everyone slammed the door in my face, because gardens flourish in July and August, when nobody’s around," she says.

Then she discovered the vertical tower gardens. "Then the game changed," she says. The towers take up 2½ feet in circumference and allow plants to be cultivated indoors year-round without the need for soil. The tower self-waters automatically via an internal pump that wets the produce roots for three minutes every 45 minutes, and plants are given the light they need for photosynthesis with LED lights that hang around the tower and stay on for 14 hours overnight. "I can bring the garden into the classroom," Algeri says. "No bugs, no soil, no weeds."

At the Winters Center, the vertical gardens are even offering a potential for adults entering the workforce  to earn money. "We have a variety of job training, and one is garden and horticulture," says Christine Ponzio, director at the Winters Center, which helps young adults find employment. The center added a greenhouse in the industrial park where they are based in West Babylon in November, planning to use eight tower gardens to grow herbs and vegetables for local businesses. They also have three more towers in their café. "We’ll care for it, package it and deliver it," she says of the produce. "This is part of what we do, helping people build a resume."

TRYING NEW THINGS

Other school districts with towers on the Island include Sachem, Port Washington, Sayville, Commack, Wyandanch, Longwood, South Country, Southampton, Port Jefferson, Center Moriches, Garden City, Riverhead, Bay Shore, Lindenhurst, Freeport, Central Islip, Levittown and Connetquot.

Brentwood now has towers in nine elementary schools that rotate among the third-grade classrooms, giving more than 1,300 students a chance to participate, says AnnMarie Madsen, science staff developer for the Brentwood District. It also has towers in the district’s two kindergarten buildings.

In addition to growing the plants, the children do interdisciplinary projects including a persuasive writing exercise in which they present the benefits of a tower garden and have a science lesson about the effects of climate change, Capasso says. They learn about nutrition and healthy eating as well. 

Produce is also donated to the school’s food pantry and to local organizations that combat hunger, Madsen says.

"I’ve never had rainbow chard before in my life," says Mateo Andrade, 8, before taking a forkful of greens at the salad party. "My mom always says to try new things, so I’m going to try new things," he says.

His verdict?

"It’s good," he says. "I like the Italian dressing. It gives a little bit more flavor to the salad."

By Beth Whitehouse

beth.whitehouse@newsday.comBethWhitehouse1

Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.