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News 12 Staff

LIalexcal1023_2024-10-23-06-41-33

This morning, we're back in Ronconcoma. We are shining a spotlight on that community this week showing you all of the great things that make that community so special. And today we're at Ron Conka Middle School, we're checking out their garden club and who better to send than our garden expert, Alex Calamia. Alex. How excited are you right now? I am beyond excited because it is just so great to see students who are involved and in love with nature at such a great, great time in their lives to really learn about this stuff. We're so involved in technology. It's really nice to learn a little bit more about nature. We have Peggy and Danielle. They're advisors of the Garden Club here on Cocomo Middle school. Uh How did this all get started? You started this about 10 years ago, you said, right, Danielle. Yeah. So we started the Garden Club 10 years ago and the mission was to teach students to have a healthy relationship with food. And I think that starts with loving nature, knowing where your food comes from, knowing how to grow your food, the patience, the time the care it takes to grow your food and then we also teach them how to prepare the food, um, recipes and ways that they can enjoy healthy food. So, what has been the favorite thing that has been produced in the garden so far? Probably the watermelon and the cucumbers. They, and the cantaloupe, they really enjoyed that. We had it at one of the meetings, cut it up. They had a little dip to put it in organic, of course. And they really did enjoy that. That's amazing. So, they're getting their hands dirty too when they're doing this. Yes, absolutely. They come out here and they help harvest and, you know, we guide them and when it's time to pick the, the fruit or the vegetables and we still have stuff in the garden now growing the butternut squash and it's just about ready. Yeah. Well, it feels like June outside this morning. It's actually average for June and we have the kids, of course, behind you guys say hi, everybody and coming up, we're going to talk to them about how and why they joined this club to begin with. It's a really, really unique after school activity and I'm so, so glad that we got to highlight it this morning. We're gonna keep on talking about what makes it so special. We're gonna take a little tour of some of the plants that are still growing right now. Guys, when the sun comes up in just a few minutes, I bet they're super excited to have you there, giving them some tips on that garden. Very cool. Alex. We'll check back in a bit when you talk to those students. You may not.

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This morning, News 12’s Alex Calamia is at the middle school.

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