Growing Food, Knowledge and Community

Joan Horwitt is at it again. The founder of LAWNS 2 LETTUCE 4 LUNCH®, an innovative Arlington, VA project designed to help Ashlawn Elementary School students learn about growing and eating healthy foods and to develop new relationships between the school and its neighbors, is sharing the legacy of the community’s last dairy farmer with a new generation.

As Scott McCaffrey tells it in his feature article in the Arlington Sun Gazette, dairy farmer Nelson Reeves was Horwitt’s inspiration for conceiving the Reevesland Learning Garden, a series of eight growing beds that have been constructed on the former Reeves farm. “We’re trying to continue his legacy,” Horwitt explained. “He was promoting healthy eating, and was also promoting community.”

The goal of the project is to educate children and adults about the science and practice of growing food, and is another step toward the creation of a proposed Reevesland Learning Center.

Joan Horwitt is a former Arlington County teacher and school volunteer.  For nearly decade, she wrote a weekly dining column for the Washington Post. 

About the Lead Author

John McKnight
John McKnight
John McKnight is emeritus professor of education and social policy and codirector of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute at DePaul University. He is the coauthor of Building Communities from the Inside Out and the author of The Careless Society. He has been a community organizer and serves on the boards of several national organizations that support neighborhood development.

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