When Zandra Magabe participated in Knox Public Health’s Green Teen Garden pilot project last year, she learned far more than how to plant, maintain, and harvest a garden.

Zandra Magabe works in the Green Teen Garden in Mount Vernon’s Arch Park in 2023.“I learned how important it is to be healthy and nutritious,” said Zandra, a sophomore at Knox County Career Center in Mount Vernon. “I also learned there are so many different recipes you can make with vegetables that your diet doesn’t have to be boring to be healthy. I like having vegetables way more than what I used to eat!”

March is National Nutrition Month®, a nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits, all of which are at the core of community gardens.

“We saw rising interest in community gardens across Ohio and around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we hope that interest continues,” said Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff, M.D., MBA, director of the Ohio Department of Health (ODH). “The gardens put healthy, affordable food on the table. They get people up and about. They foster friendships, a sense of community, and social connectedness.”