December 10, 2012: A "crunch and munch" garden with a water-play table are featured at the Mariposa-Nabi Community Garden, the first of its kind in Los Angeles built specifically for children under the age of 5. The garden is located in Koreatown on a plot of vacant land adjacent to St. Mary's Episcopal Church; the plot was donated by church-affiliated Celtic Cross.
The garden is the first effort of the "Little Green Fingers" project that was spearheaded by the nonprofit Los Angeles Conservation Corps and which has received a "generous" five-year grant from First 5 LA to help combat the "obesity epidemic" among children in Los Angeles (20% of LA County kids are obese or overweight; more than 30% of Latino children have medical diorders that can lead to type 2 diabetes and later-life heart conditions.) Eventually, Little Green Fingers will include eight community gardens in "under-served" (i.e., few grocery stores and/or lack of high-quality produce markets serving local population) neighborhoods. The gardens "will provide a minimum of 6,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables each year and will feature...amenities and programs targeting families with children ages 0-5."
According to the Los Angeles Community Garden Council, Dozens of local families, recruited by the LA Neighborhood Land Trust, helped design the garden with the guidance of landscape architect Glen Dake and community planner Miguel Luna...There are more than two dozen garden beds for families and an additional three community plots that will be cultivated by the Mariposa-Nabi Primary Center, the local Headstart pre-school and by the UC Extension Master Gardener program that will teach the community best gardening practices.
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