4-H Club Grows Potatoes for Hunger Free ND
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| Retha Colclasure |
| 7/29/2010 |
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| Some kids use summer vacation as a time to relax and do as little work as possible. Twelve-year-old Jacob Ellingson and his father started a new 4-H club about six months ago. And, the group wasted no time tackling a huge project: growing 400 pounds of potatoes. This garden in the backyard of the Ellingson`s house in north Bismarck is dominated by potato plants. These 4-H kids are spending quite a bit of time there. "It`s not very hard. We just water them and we pick all the weeds. We have to do it about every other week," explained Jacob. They`re crawling around in the dirt tending these precious plants -- precious because of what the food means. "We thought that this would be a cause for the hungry because they don`t really get much," said 11-year-old Russell Koch. "We just wanted to do something for them." The group is growing these potatoes to give away. It`s part of the Hunger Free North Dakota project. Jacob heard about the project earlier this summer, and it was his idea to get involved. Jacob said, "It`s been fun." It`s fun, and it`s also a learning experience. "Some of the kids are in town, they`ve never grown a garden, so they`re learning about growing gardens, planting stuff and seeing it grow," said Jeff Ellingson, Jacob`s father and 4-H leader. The garden will have a huge payoff for food pantries., but these kids didn`t have to pay much to put it in. All of the seed to grow the potatoes was donated by Runnings Farm and Fleet, and a local rancher donated some fertilizer to get the garden growing. These community-minded kids are also learning the benefits of being involved. "Hopefully they get out of it the idea of giving back to the community," said Jeff. "It feels really good," added Koch. The 4-H club hopes to harvest their 400 pounds of potatoes in September. The state Ag Department kicked off the Hunger Free North Dakota initiative in March. Their goal was to have gardeners and farmers commit to donating a half million pounds of fresh produce to food pantries. |
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