Roots of Change: How a School Garden Feeds a Community’s Need for Nutritious Food

When Bari Applebaum was a teacher at Manual Arts High School, she learned about the abandoned green space on school grounds and saw an opportunity for growth. The South Los Angeles school sits in a food desert, a geographic area with limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Applebaum, an experienced gardener, was confident the space could be transformed into a bountiful vegetable garden.

“Food insecurity is prevalent in this community,” Applebaum said. “Most students and their families live below the poverty line, and accessing healthy and nutritious foods can be a challenge. They don’t have grocery stores in the area that are providing them with fresh produce.”

The garden would help remove that barrier, but it would take a collective effort. Applebaum shared her vision with a group of students who helped get the project off the ground. With limited green space in their neighborhoods, some students were eager to dig into the dirt.

Applebaum and the students began rejuvenating the garden in 2017. They called the project Chicas Verdes, which means ‘green girls’ in Spanish. It evolved into an after-school program where all students can participate in maintaining the garden, eat nutritious food, bring it home to their families, and take pride in the fruits of their labor.

“One thing I really like about Chicas Verdes is our willingness to help our community,” said Brianna Espinoza.

A recent graduate of Manual Arts High School, Espinoza now works for the program. She continues doing her part to help people access more nutritious food and improve their health.

In 2021, financial and volunteer support to expand and improve the garden was provided by an Elevance Health-affiliated health plan, and the company continues to sponsor the program, which aims to make an impact on personal, environmental, and community health.

“Chicas Verdes empowers students to create healthy, sustainable systems in their communities through eliminating disparities in four areas: food access, green space, water quality, and waste management,” Applebaum said. “Chicas Verdes has a three-pronged approach for making an impact on personal, environmental, and community health; we develop community awareness, create systems to improve access to resources, and model behavioral change.”

The students’ efforts benefit their physical and mental health. They stay active tilling, planting, and harvesting. Rolling up their sleeves and working together builds self-esteem and a sense of belonging.

The garden serves as an outdoor classroom in many ways. Students learn to consider food as medicine, and understand the critical link between nutrition and health. They are taught skills to grow and prepare their own food and make lasting changes to improve health — valuable information they can then share with their families. They also acquire entrepreneurship skills by hosting produce distribution events. All these lessons enable them to make their community a better, healthier place to live.

Manual Arts graduate Cipriana Cox says one of the things she enjoyed when she was in the program was spending time in nature and listening to the different sounds from the variety of birds and the leaves.

“I learned many things, like how to garden, and Chicas Verdes teaches how to have a connection with nature and how to take care of the environment,” Cox said.

Students look forward to the time outdoors. The garden is a gathering spot during lunch, where they can enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables they helped grow.

Chicas Verdes’ impact has taken root across the community. Forty fruit trees have been planted on the school campus and throughout the area.

Hundreds of thousands of pounds of produce have been distributed to students and their families, more than 27,000 pounds in the 2022-23 school year. Additionally, events are held regularly to educate the community about healthy habits and sustainable living.

Elevance Health supports local non-profit organizations that focus on the social drivers of health; it’s part of our strategy to address the whole health of the communities and people we serve. Our associates volunteer by assisting in the program’s distribution events, providing families with bags of groceries of fresh produce.

Applebaum, who has since stepped out of the classroom to focus on her role as the executive director of Chicas Verdes, took her passion for gardening and rallied students to try something new for their school and in their community — a life-lesson students like Veronica Gomez will not forget.

“Chicas Verdes taught me that if I truly believe in something, like making a change, it can actually happen,” Gomez said.