Helping kids make healthy choices

Kimbal Musk and Hugo Matheson are adamant about helping kids eat better.

As co-owners of The Kitchen restaurants in Boulder, they recently opened The Kitchen [Next Door] that caters to kids with a menu full of healthy choices. But they wanted to do more.

Earlier this year, Musk and Matheson founded The Kitchen [Community], a nonprofit organization that partners with local organizations to help accelerate initiatives that connect kids to real food, with the ultimate goal of reversing the growing trend of obesity among children in the United States.

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The Kitchen [Community] is partnering with The Growe Foundation to provide Boulder Valley schools with a Learning Garden and the Growe Garden-to-Table program, which is already in 16 Boulder Valley School District elementary schools and Slow Food Denver’s Seed-to-Table program in 36 public schools in Denver.

In September, The Kitchen [Community] partnered with CU-Denver’s Learning Landscapes, Denver Public Schools and Slow Food Denver to fund and build a Learning Garden at Schmitt Elementary School in Southwest Denver. It has plans to help create many more throughout the United States.

The Learning Garden was designed by artist and architect Jen Lewin, Musk’s wife and co-founder of The Kitchen restaurants.

The garden is an extension of the classroom and an enhancement to the school playground. Students plant, harvest and consume their own fruits and vegetables such as lettuce, peppers, basil, tomatoes, strawberries, plums, herbs.

Musk and Matheson believe their mission will help combat the epidemic of obesity among youth in America.

Thirty-five percent of American children are overweight or obese, according to the International Obesity Task Force. The significant health risks associated with this increasing trend among school children was the primary motivation for The Kitchen Community.

According to the American Dietetic Association, sixth-grade students involved in a garden-based nutrition education program increased their fruit and vegetable consumption by 2.5 servings per day, more than doubling their overall fruit and vegetable consumption.

Fifth-grade students who participated in hands-on science lessons in a school garden scored 15 points higher on science tests on a 100-point scale than students who learned in a typical classroom, according to HortTechnology, the journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science.

“A Learning Garden is an extension of the playground that kids want to play in and around, and a natural outdoor space where teachers will want to teach,” Musk said. “The Learning Garden is a positive investment to benefit the school and its students for the long term.

“Our hope is that Learning Gardens will give children an understanding of food, healthy eating, lifestyle choices and environmental stewardship through lesson plans and activities that tie into the existing school curriculum.”

A Learning Garden is a permanent organic garden that includes fruit trees, shrubs and raised vegetable beds that provide an interactive outdoor space to connect children with real food. It’s designed as an educational tool to inspire spontaneous play by children and create an attractive outdoor classroom for teachers.

Unlike simple garden beds, a Learning Garden comprises modular beds with built-in irrigation systems that can be shaped in any configuration to fit small and large plots in virtually any schoolyard. The Learning Garden design also includes hand-painted signs by children to increase their ownership of the garden.

Schmitt Elementary is the first school in the nation to receive a $50,000 Learning Garden Grant on behalf of The Kitchen [Community]. The school is 97 percent Hispanic, and 91 percent of its student population is on a federally subsidized food program. The Learning Garden at Schmitt Elementary is 1,800 square feet, and volunteers were able to construct it in a few hours.