Good morning everyone, and welcome to the groundbreaking ceremony to initiate the first Delta Garden Study school garden at Mabelvale Magnet Middle School. My name is Dr. Judy Weber, and I am the Lead Investigator of the study, and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at UAMS and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute. With me today, greeting you as you arrived, are about 15-20 members of the faculty, staff and partners of the Delta Garden Study, most of whom are also located at UAMS, and I would like to ask them all to raise their hands now to be acknowledged for all of their hard work and contributions that have brought us to this day. I would also like to acknowledge, and express our sincere appreciation for, our many wonderful community collaborators supporting and participating in this project. Representatives of many of them are here today. We have highlighted their contributions on our website, www.arteengarden.com, shown on the banner behind me, and I invite everyone to visit our About Our Collaborators link to read about them!  I would also like to thank our wonderful sponsor, who has provided the funding for this study, the USDA Agricultural Research Service. We have two special guests representing the USDA with us this morning, Dr. Margaret Bogle, and Mr. Perry Rainosek. Thank you so much for supporting this project and for being here with us this morning!

Today we will be digging the first few shovels of dirt that will transform this grassy courtyard into a beautiful, educational, healthful, living garden. A place where THESE students will be learning how to build raised beds and plant seeds; where they will be tending and harvesting a variety of fruits and vegetables, flowers and herbs; building a rain barrel system for collecting rainwater, and then using that water to irrigate their garden; building chicken coops and composting bins and learning about the important roles of chickens and worms in the garden; studying weather and soil conditions, and even establishing a honeybee hive. And the entire time they are involved in these activities they probably won’t even realize that they will be meeting the Arkansas state frameworks for science, math, health, physical education and many other subjects, because all of the Delta Garden Study lessons are designed to align with the state frameworks in multiple core subject areas in the 6th, 7th and 8th grades, and to target all literacy components (for example reading, writing, math, and measuring skills) that are critically important to supporting student learning and performance on benchmark exams.

The primary goals of the Delta Garden Study are to increase students’ fruit and vegetable intakes and to increase their physical activity; thereby preventing, and perhaps reducing, the prevalence of obesity in this age group. But beyond these important health goals, we hope that student involvement in their garden, because it is THEIR garden, THEY will be building and creating it; that that involvement will strengthen their bonds with their school, their teachers, and their connectedness with each other, and THAT involvement we hope will have a positive impact on reducing social risk behaviors such as fighting and absenteeism; and because the Delta Garden Study lessons are integrated with core curricula, student achievement, which we hope will improve, will be tracked as well.

So I am thrilled to initiate Mabelvale Magnet Middle School this morning as the pilot intervention school for the 2010-2011 academic year.  Following Mabelvale, nine more middle schools will break ground over the next three years. Additionally, 10 control schools will be demographically pair-matched for comparison, bringing the total number of participating schools to 20, making the Delta Garden Study the largest school garden research study in the nation!

First Guest
And now, I am honored to introduce our first guest who will say a few words. She is well-known as a strong advocate for children’s reading and literacy programs; and also children’s health programs as Honorary Chair of the Natural Wonders Partnership Council.  One of her specific interests is working with schools and parents to develop healthier menu options for children in school cafeterias and to encourage healthy food choices, as well as promoting physical activity. She is also very involved in an extensive garden of her own at the Governor’s Mansion.  Please join me in welcoming Arkansas’s First Lady, Mrs. Ginger Beebe.

Second Guest
Our second guest’s work is centered at the intersection of clinical care, public health and health policy. He is an Associate Professor in the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health at UAMS and is a practicing pediatrician. He is also the Director of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement and the new Robert Wood Johnson Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity. In these roles, he has been at the forefront of the state level initiative to combat childhood obesity for the past 10 years. Please join me in welcoming Arkansas’s Surgeon General, Dr. Joe Thompson.

Third Guest
Our third guest is actually not a visitor to the school, someone well-known to these students. An educator for 33 years, serving as a math teacher, assistant principal, and principal, and now in her 10th year as principal of Mabelvale Middle Magnet School, please join me in welcoming Principal Ann Blaylock.

Control School Principal and Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony (Emily English)
We are also so pleased and honored to announce that the pair-matched control school for Mabelvale is Henderson Health Sciences Magnet Middle School, and with us here today is Henderson Principal Steve Guerin. We also wish to thank the LRSD Administration for their support of the Delta Garden Study, and we are honored that with us here today are Little Rock School District Superintendent Dr. Linda Watson, and Mr. Junious Babbs, Associate Superintendent for Secondary Education. Thank you for joining us this morning!

So let’s get started with some digging and the ribbon-cutting! I would like to ask the groups of students on the middle risers on each side to stand up and form a line along the rows of flags on each side in front of me.  And I will also ask the Delta Garden Study Program Manager, Ms. Emily English, to come forward to take over the program from me now. Please welcome Emily English.

Closing
Students, thank you for doing such a great job getting your garden started! We look forward to gardening with you full time starting in August! In the meantime, we invite everyone to check on the progress of the preparation of the Mabelvale garden on our website, by going to the Mabelvale Magnet Middle School link on the left side of the homepage. We will update the progress pictures weekly. Also, be looking for our monthly newsletter which should arrive in your email around the 5th of each month.

This concludes our groundbreaking activities. Thank you all so much for joining us this morning, and we look forward to including you in many future Delta Garden Study events and activities!