Mairi Connelly

During the winter of 2016 I had the opportunity of volunteering as a nutritional recuperation intern at Primeros Pasos. Twice a year, Scarlet, the clinic`s nutritionist, develops home vegetable gardens for women participating in the nutritional recuperation program. Scarlet started this project because vegetables, which are expensive or unavailable, are often not a substantial part of the local diet. Scarlet initiated this project in hopes of creating healthier diets by having the women grow their own vegetables.

For my independent project as an intern, I had the pleasure of organizing and building these gardens along with Primeros Pasos interns/staff and volunteers from Vanderbuilt and Virginia University. In total, we created 72 home vegetable gardens for all the program participants in one week! It was a wonderful experience to work with such an amazing community and volunteers. I hope the development of these gardens continues in the future!