Hip2B Healthy Students bring MLK Day invite letters to City Hall
On Friday, Jan. 17, PS 221 students delivered letters to Mayor Bill di Blasio to invite him to their Martin Luther King Day of Service. They didn't get to meet with him, but the mayor's staff graciously gave a tour of City Hall. And who did we run into? Public Advocate Leticia James!
Crown Heights Students Invite Jewish students to MLK Day event
On Thursday, Jan. 16, PS 221 students visited three nearby Jewish schools to deliver handwritten letters to invite them to their MLK Day of Service 5k walk/run against Violence and the Knockout and for Healthy Kids. They were beautifully received by rabbis. Said one rabbi: "They were very impressive. I was very moved." The gesture was just a step toward greater harmony in Crown Heights. Yes, we "Have a Dream."
Guess what? Our Hip2B Healthy Market Ambassadors in 2012 outscored students across their district and NYC in standardized tests! Do you think running a market, accounting, analyzing food labels to know what to sell, and writing letters and reading about food justice had anything to do with that? Or a great teacher?
Compare!
Ms.Fearon's Hip2B Healthy 4th graders scored at or above grade level:
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
Wait! Did you see that 27% scored "4" in math! That is 27% scoring above grade level!
Congrats to their teacher. Ms. Sara Ann Fearon. Yes, it's Hip2B Healthy. Register at PS221 and your child too can be a top NYC student.
Hungry? Get your fruit on!
Come to the Hip2B Healthy Market
Weekly at Crown Heights Farmers Markets
Come try out fresh lemonade and orange juice at every Crown Heights Farmers Market this summer - Thursdays and Fridays
1 - 7 pm. All-natural ice cones, anyone? 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 promoting fresh food and your health in your neighborhood. Thursday market is at Hamilton Metz Park and Friday's is at Brower Park. Thank you, donors!
Sign up now for youth soccer. We have clinics all summer. Fall registration opens soon. The Crown Heights Soccer Eagles are grooming a league. Contact us now at soccer@seedsinthemiddle.org
Adults? Want pick-up? A chance to win gift certificates for soccer restaurants and games?
Hip2B Healthy Schools don't waste any schooldays. That's why PS 221 second graders helped their friends at PS 161 build a garden the very last days of school in June. Thank you to New Design High School and Home Depot for their generous donations!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Seeds in the Middle thanks these distinguished New Yorkers for joining our advisory board! David Appel, MD, director of Montefiore Medical Center's School Health Program, named by New York Magazine as one of New York's "influentials." Jimmy Bradley, chef/owner of top-rated Manhattan restaurants, The Red Cat and The Harrison Fern Gale Estrow, a Registered Dietitian and founder of The FGE Food and Nutrition Team, whose focus is improving health and quality of life through integration of programs affiliated with food, nutrition education, clinical support, media literacy, and/or policy development.
Yale Club Chef Charles Kehrli 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, chef/owner of top-rated Manhattan restaurant, Suenos
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…
Seeds in the Middle, named by fourth 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 fight obesity initiates at schools. We weave proven programs into a comprehensive package to turn around ills driving down opportunity and advancement. We empower and educate all to get healthy and scale disparities. Our pilot Hip2B Healthy elementary school is PS 221 in Crown Heights, a neighborhood with one of New York city’s highest obesity, diabetes, and heart disease rates. It is a model for replication.
We run two community farmers markets with plans to expand; and we founded Soccer for Harmony tournaments. We are proud to boast that our focus 4th grade class test scores in 2012 surpassed the citywide average!
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.
Here's NY1's New Yorker of the Week! Thank you, NY1, and all our partners!
Come to the Martin Luther King Day of Service on Monday, Jan. 20
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter," MLK Jr.
5k Walk/Run and Farmers Market - EBT accepted!
Bone Marrow Registry Drive for 9/11 responder, retired NYPD Sgt. Wanda Davis
Learn more about Seeds in the Middle from Charity Sub!
Testimonials
Solomon 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...
Sara 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.
Students 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
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!
Georgia Goldendoodle says get a pup a bone!
Georgia thanks Carlo, her fav' Italian guy (may he rest in peace), for those absolutely, scrumptious to die for all-natural beef bones. They’re Georgia and Carlo’s Canine Cuisine. And you can get them from us for your favorite canine guy or gal! “I just go crazy over them,” says Georgia. “Friend me on Facebook: Georgia Goldendoodle.”
Grantors
Seeds in the Middle, PO Box 310752, Brooklyn, NY 11231 | Phone: 917-697-3745 | E-mail: info@seedsinthemiddle.org
Sign up now for youth soccer. We have clinics all summer. Fall registration opens soon. The Crown Heights Soccer Eagles are grooming a league. Contact us now at 
Solomon Long, Former Public School Principal, in spring 2009 wrote
Georgia Goldendoodle says get a pup a bone!
