“Si se puede!” With the Green Bronx Machine

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100 gardens in New York Schools, future jobs and college opportunities for underserved students…these are all just “Si se puede! moments”, states Stephen Ritz, a 4th grade teacher that is changing the Bronx from the inside out.

In food insecure (37%) and highly Latino populated Bronx County (54.8% Latino), New Yorker and 4th grade teacher, Stephen Ritz became a game changer for healthy foods.

Starting gardens in classrooms since 2005, Ritz has relied on free resources, his own passion for healthy changes, and a heart for underserved kids to birth the Green Bronx Machine. Producing over 30,000 pounds of healthy fresh produce a year, changing students futures, and re-designing cities with living green graffiti walls, Ritz’s passion for kids and communities to have healthy foods is easily seen.

Kids are able to eat fresh produce off walls and towers within their own classrooms. “My kids sometimes play cow,” stated Ritz in a Tedx talk, where he explains that his kids like to graze upon the garden projects in their south Bronx classrooms.

Learning all about healthy foods, staying within curriculum guidelines, and enjoying free fresh produce, kids are loosing weight and building a culture of health in his classroom and within various New York public and private schools.

Ritz’s garden projects have been on CNN, the Today Show, NBC, Ted Talk’s, and various blogs online. He has taught teachers and classes in different states, like Vermont, Florida and California.  Even taking his knowledge internationally, Ritz has taught students his garden practices in Canada, Mexico and Colombia.

Ritz gives all the credit to his students, and says that they are the ones that keep him doing the work he is doing, “I’m not a farmer, I have no farming background,…the kids are gaining as well as giving, and that’s a beautiful thing. They are reaching their genetic God given potential.”

In the poorest congressional district in America, parents are learning skills along with their students too in afterschool living wage training courses. “Our whole culture here has changed,” said Ritz, wanting his students to grow up and stay in their city and make changes for a healthier community, Ritz believes “zip code and skin color should not determine outcome in life.”

Knowing that food desserts can be changed and that healthier lives are just the beginning, the Green Bronx Machine and Ritz have multiplied their changes with their new National Health and Wellness Center. The new National Health and Wellness Center in south Bronx, is a site for healthy students, healthy schools and therefore, a healthier community.

To learn more about Stephen Ritz and how his plant-based teaching is just one of his inspirational healthy changes, check out the GreenBronxMachine.org or go to their Facebook page and watch them on their upcoming #AmGrad show on PBS October 3rd!