Rochester Area Family Y's blog

The Steps to a Healthier Rochester program and the Rochester Area Family Y are inviting community members to take "small steps" to promote active living and healthy eating by participating in America on the Move "September" month.

Physically active employees are more productive, report less stress, and have reduced health care costs. Businesses and worksites are encouraged to participate with employees in this incentive-packed, six-week, physical activity promotion!

Week 11

• This week kid’s tasted tested Zestar apples from Sekapp Orchard (open 9am-7pm daily).
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Week 9

• This week kid’s tasted tested cherry tomatoes.
• Tuesday, we spent the morning harvesting produce from their garden.
  
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Week 6

• This week kid’s tasted tested raspberries and beets.
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Week 7

• This week kid’s tasted tested cucumbers and beans (green, yellow, and purple).
• Kids prepared two snacks again this week. Tuesday it was a vegetable pasta salad (recipe below) and Thursday simple salads from their garden.
• Kids harvested several vegetables from their garden for the salads: green and red leaf lettuces, oriental cabbage, cucumbers, yellow squash, turnips, beets, radishes and kohlrabi. YUM!
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Week 4

• The kids have radishes popping through the soil, a cucumber, and tomatillos. The squash, zucchini, beans, eggplant, peppers, melons, tomatoes, cabbage, beets, swiss chard, fennel, carrots and a variety of herbs (I probably forgot some) are all doing well. However, with the warm temperatures in the last several weeks, our lettuces have gotten off to a slow start, but we have a couple of red and green leafs through the soil.
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Last week Y Campers painted a garden sign, birdhouses, and flags to add color to the garden. Take a minute to check out the garden with your kids.

Week 3

• Three weeks after planting the garden, it was time to weed. Kids learned how to tell the difference between weeds (mainly grasses) and their plants.
• This week kid’s tasted tested strawberries and we talked about the many ways we can eat strawberries
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As you know, last week Y Campers planted their garden and named it the Delicious and Nutritious Garden. Here is your glimpse of week 2. Each week we will encourage kids to share their garden experiences with family and to ask for more fruits and vegetables to be available at home.

We are excited to introduce a youth garden as new component of Ycamp this year!

Each week campers will participate in garden-based activities and will bring home a family newsletter. This newsletter will summarize the week’s activities, tell you what’s happening in the garden, provide helpful tips for how to eat fruits and vegetables, a fruit/vegetable recipe, and a take home challenge. We will publish each newsletter online so all of Rochester can read about our garden's progress. Now on to our first update.

Rochester Active SportsClub and the Rochester Area Family Y have joined together to bring you an opportunity to explore south east Minnesota at a pace and distance to suit most cyclists.

Proceeds will benefit the Y Mentors program which matches caring adult volunteers with youth ages 5-18 for a one-to-one mentoring relationship, and RASC which works to foster sports such as biking, triathalons and nordic skiing in SE Minnesota.