On June 24, Joseph B. Whitehead Boys & Girls Club members revealed their Humana-grant-funded garden to the surrounding community in a celebration that included live performances, tastings, an awards ceremony, and Club member-led garden tours.
Humana, a leading health and well-being company, provided $10,000 in funding to drive healthy habits for Atlanta youth. In partnership with Boys & Girls Clubs of America, the Humana funding also supports a community garden and activation of Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Healthy Habits curriculum, which allows Club kids to learn more about gardening while building upon Humana Healthy Horizons’ ongoing work to address food insecurity.
“We are thrilled to have Humana as a new partner in our Movement-wide Healthy Habits curriculum,” said BGCMA President & CEO David Jernigan. “At Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta, our mission is to ignite the unlimited potential of our kids and teens by creating safe, inclusive and engaging environments. The Whitehead Club garden has become a safe space for our kids to not only learn how to grow and care for fruits and vegetables, but to also develop their leadership skills and nurture their social emotional wellness while positively collaborating with community members and one another as garden managers. Each day our kids enter the outdoor garden, they are fulfilling our mission.”
Whitehead Boys & Girls Club members have been diligently working on their garden for months under the leadership of garden manager Charlie Robinson, director and founder of Champion Gardeners Youth Entrepreneurs. Robinson says the program has taught the youth gardeners leadership skills, as well as “smart work and hard work.”
“There is no future without our youth,” she said. “The vision was to give this community a botanical garden, not just a garden. And we wanted the youth to grow so that as they grew, so does the garden. … It was a blessing to me, but it was hard work. I recently lost my father, and [the kids] don’t even know how much they helped me.”
The garden reveal celebration included a slideshow highlighting the progress of the garden beginning with the concept build to the reveal. In addition, members from Whitehead and East Dekalb Clubs made special performances, and garden masters provided tastings and led garden tours. The celebration concluded with an awards ceremony, where Robinson provided trophies to Club members and staff who made the garden possible. Club gardeners then surprised Robinson with an award of her own, and she was moved to tears.
