The Bronx Salad Makes its Debut at BronxWorks

The Bronx Salad made its debut on the BronxWorks menu this spring! The Bronx Salad initially planned as part of a healthy menu initiative with local restaurants has expanded beyond restaurants. It is now served at schools, after school programs and bodegas. There is even now The Bronx Salad Toolkit for Schools recently created by Bronx Health REACH and Grow to Learn NYC. BronxWorks adapted “The Bronx Salad” Toolkit for Schools.

On the rooftop garden of the BronxWorks Carolyn McLaughlin Community Center, afterschool students grew and harvested many of the Bronx salad ingredients including cilantro, corn and kale. The Program Coordinator from the afterschool program, Project Achieve, and the Horticulturalist at BronxWorks guided participants in growing the ingredients. Engaging the children throughout the process of growing, harvesting, preparing, and eating the Bronx Salad included conducting more than 60 lessons addressing nutrition and gardening. Many of the ingredients of the Bronx Salad were explored by the children in the classroom through STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) activities.

Kim Wong, a program director at BronxWorks explained, “Feedback on the salad has been very positive and we plan to continue to grow the salad ingredients in our roof top garden and offer it in our BronxWorks afterschool program meals as well as at our BronxWorks meetings and events.” The Bronx Salad has been served to over 600 participants in children, teen, and adult programs. The salad was such a huge hit that it will now be offered once a month at the afterschool program.

So far, the Bronx Salad Toolkit for Schools and starter seed kit has been given out to over fifteen schools in the South Bronx and grown and harvested in five of those. To learn how to grow the Bronx Salad in your school garden, download The Bronx Salad Toolkit.