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Watch Our Garden Grow!
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Let’s face it, children across the country have been cooped up this past year, staying indoors due to circumstances beyond their control. With stay-at-home orders and social distancing protocols in place, many children may have missed out on opportunities for development, or worse, at risk for long term health concerns. Doctors and clinics nationwide are reporting an alarming increase in childhood obesity linked to the pandemic. This is due to a lack of outdoor physical activity, limited access to healthy foods, family stress, and isolation.
Infancy and early childhood are a key period for learning healthy eating habits that accompany us throughout our lives and into adulthood. That is why NBCC was among the first early childhood education providers to recognize that nutrition education has a place in the daily curriculum of a child care environment. In 2004, NBCC launched the Garden of Eatin’, one of California’s first on-site learning garden programs for children under the age of five. The program links health and wellness to daily classroom activities and has been recognized on a national and local level as a project of exceptional community value, especially for vulnerable children who are at higher risk and disproportionally impacted by the pandemic.
Throughout this past year, NBCC has been working hard and adjusting its delivery of the garden curriculum to continue bringing nutrition education, music and movement, mindfulness, gardening and so much more to hundreds of North Bay children, teaching them that what they eat is just as important as learning one’s numbers and letters. A program highlight this year included the buildout of NBCC’s Fitch Mountain garden and mud kitchen installation! Children have been enjoying planting flowers, harvesting vegetables, learning about soil and composting, among many other things.
Stay tuned for more exciting Garden of Eatin’ news in the coming months. In the meantime, now is a great time to get outside and plant a salsa garden just in time for summer!
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Fun Fact: This month, preschool students are learning, discussing, and practicing how to manage emotions. Also on the syllabus: musical instrument play, developing the skill of friendliness, and gardening!
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Fall Registration is open! For enrollment information, as well as applications for tuition assistance and more, click here.
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DIY Salsa Garden: Did you know that salsa tastes even better when it's made with ingredients grown by you? Check out our step-by-step instructions for planting your own salsa garden here.
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Food for Thought: Preventing childhood hunger has been on many people’s minds and we are especially thankful for generous donors who have stepped up making sure that NBCC children and their families have access to healthy meals. Here are two examples of community generosity:
- An anonymous donor partnering with Classic Culinaire Catering in Novato has been delivering 100+ weekly family meals to NBCC’s four Novato sites this past school year helping parents to not worry “what’s for dinner” one night a week.
- NBCC is grateful for Mark and Andrea Enlow, Jim Offenbach, and the Golden Gate Meat Company for their generous monthly deliveries of chicken and ground turkey which are incorporated into the children’s daily meals.
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We want to hear from you:
Stay in touch with NBCC and help community support for our youngest learners grow:
- Follow our new Instagram page
- Email President & CEO Susan Gilmore
- Share this email with your friends
It's vital we provide continued care to North Bay children and we can't do it without you.
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