(NaturalNews) What if a hurricane and disastrous man-made flood ruined the economy of your city to the point where children throughout the city could not get access to nourishing food?
Economic and nutritional degradation now sounds like most cities in America, even without a hurricane. The severe and epic disaster that happened in Hurricane Katrina is a dire warning and wake-up call.
Filmmaker Robert Lee Grant who was living in New Orleans during Katrina had a simple thought in the aftermath: What can I do to help kids survive? "Nourishing the Kids of Katrina" is the story of organic gardening and permaculture applied directly to the place where kids are found even in the direst of times: the schoolyard.
New Orleans was the canary in the mine, warning us about food self-sufficiency
"Nourishing the Kids of Katrina" follows the story of how chef Alice Waters' 'edible schoolyard' program is contributing to the rebirth of the New Orleans uptown, poor, black Green Charter School after its devastation from Hurricane Katrina floodwaters.
The film is powerful not because many of the kids in New Orleans are poor or black, and many of the people from Berkeley, sharing the way of the edible schoolyard, are rich and white. This film is powerful because our food and currency system can collapse, and there will be mass suffering and death if we cannot grow our own food locally.
In "Nourishing the Kids of Katrina," we learn how we can nourish all our kids. The film both reveals how the edible schoolyards are started and cultivated, and how much the edible schoolyard changes the lives of kids. You will see both sides in the preview at: http://premium.naturalnews.tv/Nourishing_the_Kids.htm
You don't have to spend much time on NaturalNews to know that we find serious fault with the kind of education that turns kids into zombies that unconsciously go about their lives in the herd mentality.
Many home-schools and alternative schools that keep kids connected to their originality, uniqueness, spark of divinity, and freedom of thought and expression cultivate gardens as a major part of their education.
"If they grow it, they will eat it"
"Nourishing the Kids of Katrina" features Alice Waters (from Chez Panisse Restaurant), health professionals, educators, students. Alice Waters, who appears prominently in the film, advocates the connection between lifelong health and connection to the soils of the Earth from a young age.
Waters finds support for her position in the eyes of the inspired filmmaker, Robert Lee Grant, who learned of her work when the communities of New Orleans were truly in need.
Says Grant: "All schools can do something along the lines of the edible schoolyard to get kids to put their hands in dirt, learning lifelong lessons about good nutrition, science, and citizenship."
"Nourishing the Kids of Katrina" poses the question, "Who will be the driving force for an edible schoolyard in your community?" It may be easier to establish organic, edible schoolyards in charter schools and alternative schools, but this film shows it is always possible with human drive.
The film even lets you draw your own conclusions from comments by the President and First Lady of the United States about the development of the White House organic garden, issues of childhood obesity and health, and the importance of good nutrition.
Ask yourself if you want to spearhead an edible schoolyard in your community, and consider Alice Waters' remark, "The edible schoolyard is more than an upgrade of food in the cafeteria, much more than a garden program in a school."