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Just Elementary Students Plan Garden

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By JAMIE PILARCZYK, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 15, 2007

WEST TAMPA - Students at Just Elementary School are about to get their hands dirty. They are planning an organic garden, one where corn and peas will grow next to the cafeteria.

'It will help them with science and will teach them about nutrition,' said Principal Tricia McManus, who sees students making unhealthy choices such as bringing chips to school for breakfast.

The garden is the focal point of the Community Wellness task force, part of the three-tiered Healthy Together program, which aims to make Tampa a city where healthy choices are easy. The Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel Foundation for Global Understanding created the program in response to Florida being ranked 41st in a national health rankings study last year.

'Tampa, at its core, must be a city that's healthy ... where young people are taught the importance of eating properly,' Mayor Pam Iorio said at a Healthy Together meeting Monday at the Tampa Port Authority.

Just Elementary students will visit the Sweetwater Organic Community Farm in Town 'N Country in October, break ground in November on the 20-by-30-foot school garden and by January begin planting seedlings they have nursed at home since this month.

Once the garden is established at the school, 1315 Spruce St., task force Chairwoman Pamela Sullins hopes to develop a larger garden next to a community center.

'It's not just a garden. It's about building community. It's about developing dialogue and awareness of diversity,' Sullins said. 'It's about having pride in self, school and others.'

The Workplace Wellness task force, led by Dee Jeffers of the University of South Florida College of Public Health, has a pilot group of more than 50,000 employees from employers such as the city, county, Tampa Metro YMCA, Hillsborough County public schools, USF Health, Tampa Electric Co. and Bright House Networks participating in programs to combat obesity, high blood pressure and other conditions with exercise and nutrition.

The Stop Smoking task force's goals include making Tampa's Riverwalk voluntarily smoke-free and offering more smoking cessation programs and services.

'We're approaching the whole thing as a chemical addiction,' said task force co-Chairman Dennis Penzell, former medical director of Suncoast Community Health Center. 'It's more than a bad habit. It's an addiction.'

Kiran Patel said the community sends conflicting messages about health when it places fast-food restaurants in public hospitals and offers junk food in school cafeterias.

'At the end of the day, it's individuals that have to take ownership,' Patel said. 'It is our responsibility.'

For information about Healthy Together, call (813) 471-4380, Ext. 3, or go to www.Healthy-Together.org.

Reporter Jamie Pilarczyk can be reached at (813) 835-2114 or jpilarczyk@tampatrib.com.

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