Elgin community garden has a new location!

The Elgin community garden has moved to 1st Street SE across from the Ambulance Building. Check it out! Visit the Elgin community garden website to learn more or call Kim McHugh at 507-876-2291.

Wabasha Farmers Market expands with the support of Wabasha County SHIP.

“The mission of Wabasha Downtown Farmers Market is to promote healthy lifestyles, offer a venue for personal interactions between consumers and producers, increase consumption of local produce and build and strengthen our community. I am excited to see everyone at the market.” 

- Sara George, Wabasha Farmers Market Manager

While the Wabasha Farmers Market is a great place for residents to buy fresh and local fruits and vegetables, it’s now a place for local businesses to buy direct from growers. After more than three years of working to break through barriers that prevent farmers markets from being able to aggregate and sell healthy foods to local businesses such as schools, hospitals and restaurants, Wabasha Farmers Market obtained a Wholesale Food Handler’s License.

This complements the work of SHIP in Wabasha County, and will support Wabasha-Kellogg School District, Wabasha County, and Saint Elizabeth’s Medical Center with Farmers Market Shares. The plan is to expand this service with vendor, community and grant support in years to come. This expansion in services adds to the good work by the market over the past several years. For example, Wabasha Farmers Market first accepted EBT (Electronic Benefits Transfers) starting in May 2013.

Last spring, the market was approved to be included in the WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP). Market manager, Sara George, had been working on obtaining acceptance into this program since 2013. Because of her hard work, low-income women, infants, children and seniors will be able to use these benefits at the Wabasha Farmers Market. “Sara’s efforts to support healthy food access in this county are highly valued,” said Tina Moen, Wabasha County SHIP Coordinator. 

For more information on what it means to partner with SHIP in healthy eating, physical activity, and/or tobacco-free environment projects, please contact Tina Moen at tmoen@co.wabasha.mn.us.

New community-based agriculture project in the City of Wabasha.

With the support of Wabasha County Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP), the City of Wabasha Public Works Department announces the addition of another garden plot for the community. Volunteers will plant an assortment of fruits and vegetables on three gardens and its gleanings will be made available to the public, free of charge. 

Mickey Nelson, Master Gardner and volunteer, said “We are looking at the first and third Sunday, starting in July, from nine until ten each morning for community members to come on down and pick fruit and produce. Other weeks, donations will be made to organizations seeking fresh fruit and produce such as the Wabasha Area Food Shelf and possibly the Common Closet. This is definitely a work in progress.” 

There will also be a number of fruit trees in the same lot near the garden, providing apples, pears and cherries to start. There are plans to increase the size of the current garden from the current twenty plots.  The growth depends on the funding received from donations and future grants.

The garden opened May 15 and is located at the intersection of Franklin Avenue and Tenth Street West, 1006 Franklin Avenue.  We need to thank Scheel’s SuperValu for donations of plants and potatoes for the garden.

If you have questions about the community gardens, please call 651-565-4568.

Plainview Public Library partners in a Rethink Your Drink Campaign.

"Assistance from the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership was instrumental in helping us to open up conversations and generate excitement about making healthy choices."
- Alice Henderson, Plainview Public Library Director

 The Plainview Library undertook a Rethink Your Drink project in order to promote healthier choices for people using the library. The focus of our project centered on a new water fountain with an attached bottle filling station.

This served as a catalyst to encourage staff and patrons to choose water over other beverages. We have also begun stocking our fridge with infusing items (berries, citrus fruits, mint, basil etc.). Early response has been great, with each staff member reporting they are choosing to drink water at work more than they used to.

This conversation included public programming to support the Rethink Your Drink initiative. All of the preschool classes from the Plainview-Elgin-Millville School participated in a library tour and story time, which included a discussion about the importance of water in our lives and why it is important to choose water over sugary drinks.

We invited all area school-aged children to an afterschool event with registered dietician Julie Jacobs. Julie led the children through hands-on activities that explored making healthy beverage choices. Participants got to see first-hand what sugar does to our teeth, how to figure the number of sugar cubes in a drink, and how to make flavored waters that contain little or no sugar. All participants in this event received water bottles to fill at the library's new water bottle station. We will continue offering water bottles as prizes for our Summer Reading program as a way to keep conversations about healthy drinks happening through the summer.

In total, more than 140 children ranging in age from 3-14 participated in our Rethink Your Drink programming. This included public and private school students as well as homeschool students. To further our healthy choices theme, we are also offering a healthy snack station. Wescott Orchard donates up to 5 pounds of apples per week, which we put out for children on days when we have adequate supervision. Since we began this piece of the project on March 13, we have given out about 20 lbs. of apples which are being eaten with almost no waste. We will continue this project through the summer and then assess the need for adjustments and continuation.