Southern Ag Center

In a program entitled "Veggies, from the Earth to the Tummy," Melody R. Coco, nutrition assistant, Southern University Ag Center in Avoyelles Parish discussed the importance of eating vegetables to Pre-K classes across the parish.

This presentation helped the children understand how important it is for them to have a particular number of servings of vegetables each day and what particular vegetables should be in the diet every week:

3 cups of greens
2 cups of orange
3 cups of legumes
3 cups of starchy vegetables
6˝ cups of other vegetables

Melody explained how much fun and how much money we can save when we plant our own seeds and watch them turn into plants that produce the vegetables we eat.

Melody and the children planted vegetable seeds at the children's schools. By the end of the program, about 350 children had planted vegetables at their schools and had seedlings to take home. The children were excited to take their seedlings home and plant them.

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