The Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana opened its community garden to the parents and children of Monroe for a morning of cultural education and outdoor fun as they celebrated Latin heritage.

From 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, September 21, the Children’s Coalition hosted its monthly event, Super Saturday, which is held on the third Saturday of every month.
 
September’s Super Saturday event was also the Children’s Coalition’s annual Latin heritage event. Bilingual speakers and students from West Monroe High School’s Spanish club volunteered to help set up and run the event.

Activities included a Spanish language bingo game and an interactive gardening workshop in which the children could participate in all aspects of maintaining the community garden.
 
Students from the University of Louisiana at Monroe ran a health awareness booth, preparing several posters featuring the dangers of alcohol and prescription drug abuse. In the community garden area, children played with an old-style hand operated water pump and enjoyed tacos made with vegetables grown right in the garden itself.
 
Several parents and children attended the free event to enjoy the sun, fun and culture. Many parents were excited about the idea of their children getting to participate in the community garden, and the gardening experts made the process fun and engaging, even for the smaller children.

One mother described how the community garden gives her son an experience that can be difficult to find living in a city like Monroe. “I like that the kids can get in here and get their hands dirty and learn about nature and things like that-things that he doesn’t get at my house,” she said.
 
At one activity station where the children were asked to peel the leafy coating from a batch of seeds, this volunteer watched as one girl began peeling a seed, and in just a few seconds, another girl eagerly ran up to the station and asked, “Can I peel the seeds, too?”
 
This was the atmosphere as groups of children rotated around the various activity stations in the garden. While one group fertilized soil and planted seeds in an empty plot, other groups prepared seeds or followed a guide around the garden, learning about the different plants that had already been planted.
 
The play area of the community garden also demonstrated the virtues of recycling, with shredded rubber bits cushioning the ground and old pots, pans, spoons and spatulas hanged on the fence for the children to make their own “music.”
 
If you missed this Super Saturday event and would like to know when the next one will be held, or if you’re interested in other Children’s Coalition events, you can find schedule and volunteer information at www.childrenscoalition.org/events.

• The Children's Coalition for Northeast Louisiana is bringing more visual art into Downtown Monroe. Supported in part by a grant from the Northeast Louisiana Arts Council with funds from the City of Monroe, this initiative will include a mural within our Family Garden by Vitus Shell.

The mission of the Children’s Coalition for Northeast Louisiana is to “Create communities where children and families thrive.” The project CHILDREN THRIVE, seeks to capture the essence of this mission in our community by creating the first of a series of public art mural panels designed by muralist Vitus Shell and painted with help of children and youth in our community. 

Monroe native, Vitus Shell, will work with a group of artists and local children and youth to implement the proposed project. Vitus Shell has exhibited at universities, museums, and private galleries across the country; painting a mural for the National Civil Rights Museum's NBA Pioneers exhibit; and being commissioned to do public art by the Memphis UrbanArt Commission. His artwork allows aspects of African American history to meet the complexities of African American culture in present day.

The mural will be on the fence that surrounds the Children’s Coalition Family Garden. The Children's Coalition Family Garden garden is open to the community and contains an early childhood outdoor learning center and an edible garden that feeds over 100 children in our Early Head Start centers. Over the past year, the garden has become a visible symbol of the revitalization of downtown Monroe. Situated between the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter and the Monroe Transit Bus Depot, the Children’s Coalition Family literally blooms in a desert of abandoned buildings and grey fields. The Family Garden surrounds the main office of the Children’s Coalition—a one-stop-shop that connects families to child care and parent education. In addition to the thousands of constituents served by Coalition programs each year, the garden hosts hundreds of community members each month as part of Super Saturday, a chance for families to participate in garden-based play and volunteer opportunities. 
 
Families will be able to witness and participate in the growth of the CHILDREN THRIVE mural by observing the artistic design process in action, and then lending a hand to help create a high-quality public work of art of the course of three months. The CHILDREN THRIVE mural will celebrate who we are as a community and who we serve as an organization, by highlighting the African-American perspective in relation to the land and demonstrate how art can help CHILDREN THRIVE. 

Edible gardens have been installed at Building Bridges Daycare & Learning Center on Gum Street in Winnsboro.

These garden beds are part of the Greauxing Gardens initiative through a partnership with the Children's Coalition for Northeast Louisiana and LSU AgCenter Ouachita Parish. 22 child care centers across Northeast Louisiana received beds, dirt, seeds and supplies to begin growing food to incorporate into the children's meals. Nutritionist Cindy George is providing support. ​

Congratulations to our Nurturing Parenting Program (NPP) Cohort 15 Graduating Class. Training during these 16-weeks of NPP included Life Skills, ACE, Home Visits, Case Management, Individual Support Counseling and Parent-child Observations.
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These parents stated they loved the parenting skills they learned and enjoyed our wonderful staff. The children also enjoyed the Easter Egg Hunt that took place outside in the garden to celebrate this milestone.

The Family Resource Center staff is proud of our 10 graduating parents and wish them much success as they continue to work towards their goals!