Carnival Fun at Meadows Park

On Thursday, July 26, The Flying Carrot participated in a health "carnival" for kids at Meadows Park Community Center (MPCC) organized by the student nurses of the Beth-El College of Nursing. MPCC provides the underserved Stratmoor Hills neighborhood with a safe and healthy environment for providing free and affordable programs and resources for everyone. There were booths set up for hydration, exercise, sun protection, and dental health. The Flying Carrot served as the booth for nutrition. Check out the sign the kids made for the bus.

About 50 kids were gathered and given "passports" that were stamped after completion of the activity at each station. The kids were free to roam between stations and before I knew it my station was swarming!! The kids were eager to get started on the healthy plate art project. One thing I learned from this event is that education about the healthy plate would best be delivered before passing out the plates, because once the plates started being distributed all pandemonium broke out (in a fun way)! Let me tell you dried beans and lentils were flying! 

While it seemed many of the kids got the main educational message of the project, others were too distracted with getting started on painting, pasting, and coloring. To remedy this, I did my best to look at each child's finished plate and ask them questions about what made their plate healthy. The other educational piece was taste testing of fresh veggies from Venetucci Farm. There were purple and orange carrots, kohlrabi, cucumbers, and yellow wax beans. Much to my surprise, the kids gobbled up the veggies and had no qualms about not having anything to dip them into (i.e. the ever popular ranch dressing). It is absolutely not true that kids don't like vegetables! Kohlrabi was a particular favorite. Although initially wrongly identified as a beet or a radish, by the end of the event all the kids were raving about that strange looking vegetable that tasted so good, exclaiming "I love it!"  Peaches are currently in season, so I made a peach purée (using peaches from Palisade,CO) and mixed it with plain yogurt and a touch of honey. Being that it was a hot day, many of the kids enjoyed the cool treat. 

Take a look at the beautiful plates created by the kids. Their creativity blew me away.

One of the student nurses was able to secure boxes of food from Care and Share, which each child (or siblings) got to take home with them at the end of the event. Overall, this was an excellent event for the Flying Carrot and the start of what we hope will be a long relationship with MPCC. How privileged I felt to teach such bright kids!