Worm whisperer and worms aid Club in fight against childhood obesity
A worm whisperer is helping youth at the Boys & Girls Club with their latest venture – worm farming.
Why worm farming, you might ask? The Boys & Girls Club is the proud caretaker of 10,000 and more super and standard red wiggler worms. Steven Blair is the whisperer, and B&GC staff member Whit Caulkins works with Blair and the youth, to keep the worms well-hydrated and happy.
The worms were acquired last fall as a part of Project Grows, a multi-partnership between Augusta Health, the Boys & Girls Club, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, the Department of Social Services, Head Start, Mary Baldwin College, the Central Shenandoah Office on Youth, Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Valley Community Services Board, working to help to reduce childhood obesity in Staunton, Waynesboro and Augusta County.
Land has been acquired from Augusta County to start gardens in the Verona area for the project.
Caulkins says the youth have helped with the worms by going upstairs, where the worms are presently living in their worm hotel, and helping to maintain them by feeding them a diet of shredded paper and compostable vegetable waste. The worms recycle that waste and paper into worm castings – ideal for the new gardens that will start this spring. While the initial purchase was for 10,000 worms, that number is also growing as the worms grow and reproduce.
Future plans for the worms include a few being relocated to the gardens and some may possibly be sold at the Virginia Fly Fishing Festival or other related events as PR for the B&GC and Project Grows.
“The worms,” Caulkins says, “were more a way to get the kids interested and learning something about composting than for use at the garden site.”
Future plans are that Project Grows will help provide a learning experience for area youth about where tomatoes and other vegetables really come from and to experience what truly “fresh” vegetables taste like.
It is hoped that growing and tasting fresh vegetables will encourage their consumption and a reduction of the growing epidemic of childhood obesity which can lead to diabetes and other health-related illnesses.
