By: Kathlene Brookshire & Vicki Lopes, Foster Grandparent Co-Directors

Our Foster Grandparent Program’s new Towne & Country Classroom Garden Project (T&C) is a pilot program designed to promote healthy lifestyles for our local at-risk youth. T&C curriculum design and development will be completed at the end of this month while the classroom component will get underway January 2010. Foster Grandparent Lupe Martinez will mentor students at Jefferson Elementary School in Central Fresno (“Towne”) and Foster Grandparent Margarita Cortez will mentor children in our Agency’s School Age Child Care Center in Orange Cove (“Country”). These fabulous volunteers will: provide youth with knowledge about nutrition, exercise, and growing fresh food in small spaces; facilitate environmental consciousness; and foster respect for nature’s wisdom and appreciation for nature’s beauty. Students will learn creative means for reflection on their environmentally conscious experiences such as: art from the garden projects, garden journal keeping and creation of a personalized garden scrapbook. Documentation of these rich encounters with nature will dovetail with the prospective third phase of the Foster Grandparent Program Green Trilogy- lined up to debut in 2011- Recipes For Love. This story project and publication will include Grandparents’ Heirloom Recipes along with heartwarming narratives of Grandparent life stories gathered by the young folks they mentor. In this way the emotional health of both our youngsters and our elders is fostered through the vitality of intergenerational bonding & Grandparents’ precious pearls of wisdom are strung together as an offering of living history. The Towne & Country Project is made possible through funding from Kaiser Permanente. !