Tuscaloosa's fourth annual Garden Party is taking place Sunday evening from 5 to 8 PM. The event is the main fundraiser for the Druid City Garden Project. It features chefs from eight local restaurants under one roof preparing dishes you won’t be able to find anywhere else.
I spoke with the Druid City Garden Project’s executive director Lindsay Turner about the party and the work the event is going to fund.
Lindsay Turner: "Druid City Garden Project is a non-profit organization here in Tuscaloosa. We’re a school garden education program. Our primary program is called Gardens to Schools, and in that program we come into elementary schools, we install gardens, and then we use them as a teaching tool to teach science- and math-based education. So, using these gardens, we’re not only trying to connect kids to their food source and teach them about healthy eating habits, which is a core part of our mission.
We’re also trying to improve access to healthy food, especially for kids in our city that may not have easy and affordable access to fresh foods. And we’re trying to increase education outcomes. We’re trying to use project-based learning methods to get kids really excited about learning, and excited about core subjects and critical subjects like science and math."
Alex AuBuchon: "What are some of the projects these kids are able to take part in using the gardens?"
LT: "Some examples of things that kids might do in the garden include a carrot dissection lesson, where kids get to learn about taproots by harvesting a carrot. They see how water flows from root to tip by actually feeling it, squeezing the carrot to get a little bit of liquid out of the center cells.
At this age, a lot of their math standards include measuring, learning how to make charts. So they’re measuring the size of that taproot, they’re comparing it to a fibrous root which, of course, is a grass root, something shallow that spans right under the surface of the soil. They get to see how those plants and how those root structures affect the plant’s growth by touching it, by feeling it, by using all of their five senses to be able to learn that standard."
AA: "Tell me a bit about the Garden Party – what it is, and what people should expect."
LT: "So the Garden Party is a really fun event that we put on. Our mission, as I mentioned, is all about increasing access and knowledge about healthy, local food. So what better way to do that than have a big food festival? So we pair up some of our loyal, fantastic farmers in the area with some of our amazing local restaurants. The restaurants will create unique dishes that you won’t find on their menus using that farmer’s produce. And then guests get to come and sample all of that delicious food. There’s local beer from all three of the Tuscaloosa breweries. There will be wine, of course, for those that aren’t big beer lovers, and a really fun old time string band sets off the mood perfectly. In addition to that, we have phenomenal silent auction items, a kids’ area, so it’s a family-friendly event. It’s just a really wonderful time."
AA: "Where is the party going to be located?"
LT: "The event this year is at going to be at Smith Hall on the University of Alabama’s campus, in the natural history museum. We have sold out every single year, and we’re getting close already, so we encourage folks to buy early and go ahead and get that ticket, because we may not have any at the door this year."
AA: "Your organization has only existed since 2010, and in that time you’ve been able to establish teaching gardens in seven different elementary schools at this point. What do you hope to see in the future for the Druid City Garden Project?"
LT: "Our dream is that every school in Alabama will have a teaching garden. With the results that we have seen in our schools, which include a University of Alabama-backed study that showed that kids that had been exposed to our program were 52% more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. They had a 14% increase in standardized reading scores and an increase in standardized math scores.
Our kids were healthier, they were more excited to go to school and had a huge range of other positive improvements. And with such dramatic results, these gardens aren’t just anecdotal feel-good things. They are true preventative health measures. They’re a way to get kids excited about school. And if we can do all of that with such a relatively simple tool, we think this program should be ubiquitous across the state."
You can help make that happen by attending the Druid City Garden Party Sunday evening from 5 to 8 PM at Smith Hall at the University of Alabama. Tickets are available online at DruidCityGardenProject.org.