A look into Stony Brook University Hospital's infamous rooftop garden located on the third floor deck of the Health Science Center at Stony Brook Medicine.
In 2011, the Nutrition Division (Department of Family Medicine) at Stony Brook was able to create the farm from a grant provided by a New York State Department of Health funded project called Creating Healthy Schools and Communities. Yielding about 1500 pounds of produce each season, the harvest is used in the hospital kitchen for patient meals and a portion is donated. The farm has 36 raised beds providing 2,242 square feet of gardening space. Organic, fresh produce is delivered "farm to bedside" as the hospital kitchen cooks between 1,800 and 2,000 individual meals per day. The most common grown produce is tomatoes, peppers, broccoli and herbs, stated by Cara Montesano, co-manager of the rooftop farm and Public Health Nutrition Programs Coordinator, in the video below. Although it is managed by the Nutrition Division, the help of student volunteers is needed to ensure a flourishing harvest. Information from https://www.stonybrookmedicine.edu/node/3976
During the growing season, donations are made weekly to the Women Infant and Child Nutrition Program, the campus food pantry and a local social service agency. Sotiria Everett, a registered dietitian and clinical assistant professor at Stony Brook University, helps run a cooking program for children ages 9-11 called "Healthy Cooking and Baking Classes for Kids" implemented by the Stony Brook Heights farm (Fitzpatrick, 2019). Twice a year during summer, the workshops are held as two or three day sessions, and are meant to educate children on how our food is grown and how to transform produce in the kitchen. Programs like these take food as medicine outside the hospital setting, reaching a wider audience by educating younger generations on how institutions can make progress in introducing food as medicine.
Back in the hospital, Cara Montesano states that hospital chefs determine what produce needs to be grown that season in order to provide the freshest, healthiest meals to patients' bedside. When a patient orders meal containing the farms' produce, a tent card is placed on the meal tray to inform the patient that part of their meal was harvested from the rooftop garden. Below is an array of photos displaying some meals Stony Brook was able to provide to patients.
Photos from Stony Brook Heights Rooftop Farm Facebook Page
Works Cited
Fitzpatrick, T. (2019, October 21). Rooftop farm thriving at Stony Brook Hospital. Food Management. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/2307169390/
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