TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) – Many of you throughout our community are coming up with ways to help one another, as more people need help putting food on the table. A joint venture between Urban Wholistics and Shared Legacy Farms on Wednesday is a great example of that.
It’s a brand new project called Snap It Forward. It’s designed not only to help feed people, but to help teach young people about the importance of knowing where their food comes from.
Shared Legacy is an organic farm in Elmore and on Wednesday, it served as a classroom as well. Seventh and eighth-grade students from Toledo Preparatory Academy spent part of the day in the fields helping harvest food that would have been composted.
Sonia Flunder-McNair is the founder and executive director of Urban Wholistics, a grassroots farm in Toledo.
“We have a huge source of beautiful farm land and water in Ohio and we want to teach children how to rely on a local supply of food,” Flunder-McNair said.
Flunder-McNair said the experience of spending a day on the farm gives a whole new meaning to the term field trip.
“They’re out here getting their hands dirty,” Flunder-McNair said.
Flunder-McNair said her focus is on making sure people of all ages have access to fresh, healthy food.
“To be able to tap into our own resources is the goal. To teach others how to utilize what we have in our own backyard,” Flunder-McNair said.
The students are part of an urban agriculture class taught by Urban Wholistics.
“We learn about things like herbs, how to farm, how to make money and life skills,” Cameron Bailey, an eighth grader, said.
Wednesday’s lesson was focused on a hands-on experience. Bianca Lanting is a seventh grader who has deep roots with Urban Wholistics.
“We learn about self-sufficiency so we can grow food and make it healthy, so we don’t have to depend on grocery stores when we can depend on ourselves and the community around us,” Lanting said.
Da’Layah Tatum loves knowing that their work will help others.
“It makes me feel great to be out here helping our community,” Tatum said.
The partnership between Urban Wholistics and Shared Legacy Farms will pay off on a number of levels. The kids helped harvest squash that will now be used to help feed people in Toledo.
Other volunteers helped bring in different vegetables, including celery, cabbage and turnips. They expect to be able to use all of the vegetables to help feed more than 200 families, and that’s an important life lesson for the students.
“They get to learn the effort that goes into some of the stuff they see, you often just go to the grocery and you just grab it and don’t think about the process,” Noah Veryser, the head grower at Shared Legacy, said.
An effort that is planting seeds that will grow for years to come.
“Healthier food means a healthier body and a longer, healthier life,” Veryser said.
The food will be distributed on Friday at Urban Wholistics.
The idea for this project just came about on Monday and it was put into action today. The plan is to make Snap It Forward an ongoing initiative.
To learn more, click here.
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This article was published by WTVG on 2025-11-05 18:36:00
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