Community Corner
Monte Vista School to Celebrate Garden Opening on Monday
The L.A. Sprouts program will simultaneously be holding its open house.
Students at Monte Vista School have been developing their green thumbs in the school's garden and on Monday, March 26, the community is invited to see what they've learned so far.
Monte Vista School is the flagship school for L.A. Sprouts, an after-school program aimed at reducing obesity by educating youth in gardening, nutrition and also teaching them how to cook.
"It's been really exciting. I feel like the students will take a lot more ownership, having gone through the program and I'm really hoping those students will become the leaders in continuing the work in the garden," MVS principal Megan Guerrero said.
Find out what's happening in Highland Park-Mount Washingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Approximately 60 students are participating in the L.A. Sprouts 12-week lesson plan and according to Guerrero, the program is nearly halfway over.
The participating students are L.A.'s Best students, and had a variety of health tests done prior to the start of the L.A. Sprouts program, according to Guerrero. After the program ends, L.A. Sprouts will study the results and see how the program has affected participating students.
Find out what's happening in Highland Park-Mount Washingtonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
L.A.'s Best is an outside provider that works with the Los Angeles Unified School District to provide an after school program.
After the initial 12-week program is done, Guerrero said she would like to implement a variety of programs that will use the garden in order to make it a real part of the campus.
"We do science with our English language program, a lot of the lessons are earth science, life science and learning about plants and animals so it's within the scope of the L.A. Sprouts program," Guerrero said.
The garden opening celebration and L.A. Sprouts open house will take place between 3 and 5 p.m. at Monte Vista School. The open house will include a tour of the school garden, gardening activities and a cooking demonstration by participating students.
Monte Vista School is located at 5423 Monte Vista Street.
Guerrero said, "I look forward to partnering with L.A. Sprouts, a lot of the master gardners and people involved in the program want to sustain the work and keep it going. It reaches beyond the school. A lot of people from the community, want to stay involved and thats what we need, those kinds of partnerships."
