Save our Seeds

An educator teaches youth how to grow food to survive the desert.

Sheri Booker
Writer

Photography Provided by
BEMORE Photography 
http://www.bemorephotography.org

Growing up in northeast Baltimore, Sherrett Jacobs had access to a grocery store with healthy food choices less than a mile from her home. Now the mother of a ten-year-old son, she understands the importance of feeding the future. But there is a food desert in the neighborhood where her nonprofit organization 360 Degrees is headquartered and students the same age as her son don’t have many options for healthy eating.

According to a study by Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, one in four Baltimore residents live in a food desert with limited access to healthy food. The term “save our seeds” means so much more to Jacobs. “There aren’t many recreation centers. And they have taken trades out of schools.”  That’s why she designed 360 Degrees to focus on urban agriculture. It literally teaches students the 360 cycle of a seed: eat, save, germinate, and plant it again.

Jacobs, a teacher staff coach for Catholic Charities, has made it her personal mission to transform the lives of the young people of Baltimore. “Personally we’re shifting. I’m an educator and we are failing our students. We have to shift the mindsets of youth and provide them with healthy eating habits.” And the best way to do this is with hands-on experience.

The summer program allows students to maintain an in-door garden, where they grow herbs, lettuce, spinach, green peppers and squash. Each week during the program, students participate in cooking sessions and take their projects home to share with their families. “We camouflage academic sustainability through recreational activities. The campaign is the initiative to reinforce math, science, chemistry and physics.” Jacobs explained. “Kids don’t want to be reminded of academics during the summer.” But no child ever turns down food, even if it is vegetables.