Donation funds organic garden at Seaside Day Camp

The city of Encinitas Parks and Recreation Department received a $1,500 donation from Healthy Day Partners to fund the initial start-up for an organic garden as part of the Seaside Day Camp. The goal of this project is to create a small organic garden at Glen Park Scout House to educate day camp students about urban agriculture, nutritional sciences and the benefits of eating farm-to-fork. The garden will also eventually provide fresh organic edibles for camp snacks that the students themselves helped grow.

The donation provided by Healthy Day Partners, a local nonprofit that supports programs that engage students through school gardens, wellness and environmental education, is being used to fund the initial start-up of the small garden. The donation was used to cover the costs of garden planter boxes, organic soil, seeds and starter plants. Healthy Day Partners hosted an educational session at the camp on June 22 and taught campers how to plant organic plants and keep the garden healthy. Campers were able to get their hands into the soil, dig holes and place the individual plants in them. Glen Park is the City of Encinitas’s first organically managed park.

“The community garden fits well with our community heritage and will be a great resource for the children of our community,” said Jim O’Grady, Encinitas’ interium director of parks and recreation. “We know children learn most when they’re engaged and having fun. Through hands-on interaction, the garden will allow the next generation of Encinitas residents to learn lifelong lessons about agriculture and the food they eat. We thank Healthy Day Partners for their support on this.”

Healthy Day Partners was founded by Mim Michelove and Camille Sowinski to promote community health by assisting schools, school districts and the greater community with environmental and wellness education programs. These efforts include providing guidance on school gardens and farms; waste reduction best practices, composting efforts and resource conservation initiatives.

“Healthy Day Partners was created to provide our local schools and community with sustainable programs that help students and residents make informed, healthy lifestyle choices,” said Healthy Day Partners’ co-founder Mim Michelove. “Through our experiences at Ocean Knoll Elementary School’s Farm and the Straight to the Plate program, we’ve seen how impactful agricultural and nutrition programs can be. We are thrilled to support the City’s efforts to help educate the next generation about healthy food through this engaging community project.”