New 'Adopt a Garden' program gets its first two sponsors

Adesis & Nemours add their support

If you have ever worked with HFHK's Executive Director, Lydia Sarson, there is a good chance you have heard her loudly proclaim, "Teamwork makes the dream work!" This rings true for many aspects of life, but especially in gardening!

In late 2021, Sarson and HFHK staff worked together to refresh and actively pilot their revised 'Adopt a Garden' program, which involves corporate support from the local community. The goals of the program are to provide additional volunteers to the schools and garden coordinators and help HFHK grow our statewide expansion. Each of our 40+ gardens needs volunteers for "Adult Days", where the gardens are put to bed or opened in preparation for planting. These days can include weeding and clean-ups and are often the responsibility of the garden coordinator/garden steering committee.

The gardens adopted by Nemours and Adesis are at Carrie Downie and Pleasantville Elementary Schools, respectively. "While school gardens differ from community gardens, it takes community to be successful in nonprofit work," notes Sarson. "We are beyond grateful to Nemours Children's Health and Adesis, Inc. for their belief in our program and organization."

Nemours sees the need for kids to access healthy foods

“Nemours supports Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids because we recognize the need and importance for kids to have access to healthy foods," said Yvette Santiago, Director of Community Engagement. "At Nemours, we recognize that addressing these social determinants of health have an enormous impact on health."

Volunteers from Adesis, Inc. clean the garden at Pleasantville Elementary. (Photo credit: HFHK staff)

Adesis love programs that cultivate curiosity in kids

President/CEO Andrew Cottone said, "Children have an innate curiosity about everything! Adesis is a community of scientists, so we love programs that cultivate and encourage this curiosity – like sponsoring the school garden at Pleasantville Elementary School. Helping to ready the space was the first step in what promises to be an inspiring and educational collaboration between Adesis, Healthy Food for Healthy Kids and the students. Since we are a homegrown Delaware company, we’re proud to give back to our community in this way."

We'll update you in future communications about our 'Adopt a Garden' program and how you can get involved. If your company is interested in participating, please contact Lydia Sarson at lsarson@healthyfoodsforhealthykids.org.