Seeds in the Middle
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Seeds in the Middle is a registered 501c3 charity

 

 

In the News

Visit our markets! Reserve a fresh food bag here

Where's a market or neighborhood delivery?

Brownsville, Boerum Hill, Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Flatbush-Ditmas Park
Spend $10 cash, get FREE $5 Hip2B Healthy Bucks ($5 value for $10)
HEALTH BUCKS: Spend $2 EBT/SNAP, get $2 free up to $10 a day free.

Pop-ups too.

Hip Bucks

 

See our market map here.

Volunteer! Yes, We need you!

See opportunities here.

Tell us about you here.



Volunteers

 

Do you think Heathy Eating is a Civil Right?

 

Then sign the petition: Empower Fresh Food for All: Support Central Brooklyn Farm Stands

Food Justice!

Join our next Healthy Food Day of Action.

Read about our march here.

See Photos here.

Here's PS-178's Healthy Day of Action: June 9, 2021

Want to see student writings? Want this at your school yard?
Contact Us

Students

 

Hip2B Healthy Students Achieve Higher

Subject Hip2B Dist. 17 NYC
Math:"3,4" 85% 43.5% 65.7%
Math:"4" 27% 16.1% 29.1%
ELA:"3,4" 69% 49.3% 52.4%
Science:"3,4" 96.2% 77% N/A

Compare!
Ms.Fearon's Hip2B Healthy 4th graders scored at or above grade level: All of these students ran a Hip2B Healthy Market, grew edible gardens, cooked healthy and fresh with chefs, engaged in physical fitness like soccer and learned about composting and recycling. They also ate nutritional food. They were our pilot class in 2012.

Hungry? Get your fruit on! And Veggies!
Ocean Hill-Brownsville Farm Stand-Cafe
Edible Gardens, Butterfly Greenhouse, too!
Weekly outside PS-IS 178

 

Hip2B

 

Come try out fresh fruits and vegetables at the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Fresh Farmstand every Wednesday outside at PS-IS 178, 12:30p-3:30p (fall hours will be extended) Fresh, affordable nearby fruits and vegetables from local farmers, a market run by the students! Who says you can't get a nutritious snack for as little as 50 cents? Students/parents - forget the junk food at the corner stores! Support youth and your community promoting fresh food and your health in your neighborhood. EBT/SNAP/FMNP accepted. Plus - learn about our $5 Hip2B Healthy Bucks. Spend $10, get $5 Hip2B Healthy coupon! Thank you, donors!

 

Check out our photos from our first markets

 

Pandemic

 

PANDEMIC PARTNERSHIPS - THE SILVER LINING

We are thrilled this August to open the joyful Wyckoff-Boerum Hill-Gowanus FarmFlea Fun Market on Wyckoff Street between Hoyt and Bond, opening August 28.The foundations of this unprecedented healthy collaboration of diverse neighbors was built during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic at PS 38. We were honored to work with PS 38 parents, students and their community, partners from the Wyckoff and Gowanus Houses and volunteers in Boerum Hill to provide fresh fruits and vegetables so every neighbor had a chance to eat fresh and build their immune systems against this terrifying virus. Thank you to our supporters. Come out every Saturday, 11a-3p. Flea vendors welcome. All neighbors welcome to promote their brand while providing wholesome fun activities for all.

 

Students Help Students Build Gardens!

 

girl with lettuce plant

Hip2B Healthy Schools don't waste any school days. That's why we built gardens together. PS 221 second graders helped their friends at PS 161 build a garden. Volunteers helped Ms. Sarria at IS 240 clean out her garden for Martin Luther King Day of Service 2020. GJS 284 painted their garden boxes and will be starting to grow soon. Stay tuned. Thank you, volunteers, and Home Depot for your generous assistance!

 

 

In June, a mission of youth and their parents from Florida, called Solid Rock, stormed into Crown Heights and helped Hip2B Healthy students build gardens, cook nutritiously with Chef Elle Siimone, make artful signage and play ball - all to get healthy.

 

See photos of our chef night here

 

Hip2B Healthy Farmstand Fundraiser Rocked!

 

little girl

Did you know PS 221 offers Metropolitan Opera Guild Urban Voices chorus, keyboard for all students k-2 and ballroom dancing for 5th graders? On March 22, our Hip2B Healthy ambassadors raised $ with our first farmstand fundraiser - selling grapes, fresh orange juice, apple cider, New York apples, grape tomatoes, Ronnybrook yogurt drinks, strawberries and plants grown by our very own PS 221 urban farmers! Thank you, Jetro Cash and Carry, Ronnybrook, Tree-licious Orchards, Wilklow Orchards, Beth's Farm Kitchen.

 

Check out our photos here

 

Congrats!

Hip2B Healthy Ambassador Award Winners

 

hip2b healthy awards

 

See photos here

 

Gardening and Math? Using a Green Room!

 

smile plant

Our third graders were delighted to learn how to measure and boost their math skills by gardening in the Green Room! They used measuring to solve all types of planting problem, like where to plant seeds in the indoor grow tables.

Thanks to the Whole Kids Foundation, Anna Elllis, teachers and students are growing in tables beautifully crafted by Home Depot and building worm composting bins.

 

See the story at our blogspot

 

See photos here

 

 

RAFFLE! Everybody wins! Win an iPod or earn prizes by selling tickets, including an iPod.

Download flyer here!

 

 

Children’s Garden at Hamilton Metz Park

 

roy garden group

 

Thank you, Kaboom, and Farmer Roy Hildebrant’s family and friends - our Crown Heights Farmers Market co-founders - for planting the first children’s garden at Hamilton Metz Park. We planted trees and bulbs. We look forward to seeing them come up this spring, to bring back our beautiful memories of Farmer Roy, who passed last August.

 

Students cook at the Yale Club

 

Yale club cookingcooking at yale club

 

See our slideshow of Chef Kehrli with his newest sous chefs.

 

 

brooklyn tastes brooklyn tastes

 

Many thanks to all our Tastes of Brooklyn and Eat Real NYC chefs and donors and volunteers and tasters!


Special gratitude to the Aetna Foundation, Bronx Health Reach, Citizens Committee of New York City, Home Depot, Whole Foods Market and all our volunteers and supporters who keep Seeds in the Middle growing! 

BROOKLYN FOOD HEALTH COUNCIL

Click here to learn more

ADVISORY BOARD
Seeds in the Middle thanks these distinguished New Yorkers for joining our advisory board! 
Jimmy Bradley, chef/owner of top-rated Manhattan restaurants, The Red Cat and The Harrison 

Charles Kehrli, Yale Club Chef

Mary Leou, Ph.D, Director of the Wallerstein Collaborative for Urban Environmental Education at NYU, and Director of the Environmental Conservation Education Program in the Department of Teaching and Learning. (Dr. Leou has over 20 years of experience in urban environmental education. She has received numerous grants to develop school programs, teacher education initiatives, and environmental curricula. She is the former Chair of the Environmental Education Advisory Council and serves on numerous boards in the metropolitan area including Nature Network, Metro Forest Council and a member of the NYS Outdoor Education Association's Environmental Literacy Committee.) 

Sue Torres,  celebrity chef
 
Thanks to all our generous donors! Aetna Foundation, Citizens Committee of NYC, Home Depot, Whole Foods Market, Modell's, Institute for Integrative Nutrition, all our volunteer chefs and more…

 
 
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Seeds in the Middle, named by 4th graders, inspires parents, educators, students and their community to access all opportunities beginning with improving their health, enhancing arts education and greening their environment. We are joyful, respectful, educational and engaging. We nurture the whole child.

 

Our innovative strategy to overcome health, educational and food inequity initiates at schools. We empower and educate all to get healthy and scale disparities. Our pilot Hip2B Healthy schools are in central Brooklyn, a neighborhood with one of New York City's highest obesity, diabetes, heart disease and premature death rates. Our programs are models for replication.

 

We believe sustainable solutions to inequity are local and healthy eating is a civil right.

 

We have created and run community and student-run farm markets, gardens, soccer and fitness programs in low-income, food-insecure neighborhoods since 2010. We are proud to boast that our first focus 4th grade class test scores in 2012 surpassed the citywide average; and our partner students build achievement through hands-on learning with cooking, farm stands, entrepreneurship, food justice, Hip2B Healthy Cafes, growing and more.

 

At Seeds in the Middle, we partner with faculty. We teach how to grow, market, access and prepare nutritious food, how to exercise and engage in the arts, all the elements needed to promote life-changing lifelong health. Our partners come from all walks of life: chefs, athletes, educators, artists, builders and more. We cross cultures. We transform gray into green, destitution into inspiration.

 

See the map of where we've been, where we are and who wants us here!

 

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Click here for updates on our programs
Fresh Markets- Food Justice - Soccer - Education

Meet Seeds in the Middle's Advisory Council

2022 cafe6 October healthy eating

Check out our Hip2B Healthy Market Rap!.

Calling all players

Click here for Soccer info!

See Seeds in the Middle Chair Solomon Long advocate for sports to fight gun violence in our most dangerous precincts.


Tastes of Brooklyn logo

Join us for our Tastes of Brooklyn food and drink crawls.
Eat, Drink, Do Good.
Support the eateries you love and charity. See our website here.
Thank you Chefs, Restaurants, Bars, Food Establishments, all, for supporting
our youth.We are planning our 2023 events.

Let's support local. Want to know who's open?
Check out our Tastes of Brooklyn online interactive maps here.


Did you see us in the Daily News?

Nutritionally, a Tale of Two Cities

Send your comments to info@seedsinthemiddle.org<


Our Youth are Against Violence and For Arts, Healthy Food and Opportunity for All

Join our next Martin Luther King Day of Service!

Do you believe in food justice?
See our first video about youth at PS 221 marching in our
2014 MLK Day Million Youth March for Freedom

 

See Our entrepreneurs here!


Read here what people say.



Testimonials

thought bubbleSolomon Long, Former Public School Principal, in spring 2009 wrote
I have been a principal in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for nineteen years. I was born and raised in Crown Heights. I was quite concerned when NY1 showed the statistics on where the highest obesity was in the city. Read more...

bubbleSara Ann Fearon, Fourth Grade Teacher, in July 2011,  teacher Sara-Ann Fearon wrote a moving letter about the deterioration in diet over two decades in Crown Heights and the “staggering” differences in services between their neighborhood and more affluent areas. She movingly describes the impact of Seeds in the Middle. 
I am reminded of the saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a  man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” This project has created what we hope to be mental and physical adjustments that will continue throughout the lives of these children. It is also my desire to see the continuation of this program in P.S. 221 with its students becoming the ambassadors of healthy eating within their families and their communities."  See entire letter here.

 

bubbleStudents say:
"I love working at Seeds in the Middle because I get to plant and be a part of a group of people who are trying to change the world. I learned that Seeds in the Middle is not just about planting and being healthy, it is to fight bad things that crawl into people such as cancer," said one fourth grader. "I want more people to help us out because it does not hurt for a couple of more hands to come in. "Read more here

 

bubble See what we reported to the Aetna Foundation, our first grantor!
Seeds in the Middle, named by fourth graders, proves that challenged communities at the heart of the obesity epidemic can be empowered to change their unhealthy environment, and boost academic achievement, if provided adequate support and resources. This multi-faceted, grassroots strategy transformed a school in low-income central Brooklyn, where over 95% of students receive free or reduced lunch, from being ignorant of links between food and fitness to good health to becoming active advocates for positive change. Read entire report here!









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Grantors

Aetna Foundation Bronx Health

 
   
 
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Seeds in the Middle, Brooklyn, New York 11201  Tel: 917-697-3745 Email: info@seedsinthemiddle.org 

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