Title
Arcadia University Public Health Society
Description
Arcadia University Community Garden
Jiana Saigh and Michelle R Odelberg, two passionate Arcadia University graduate students and campus liaisons with the American Public Health Association speak about their efforts to start a community garden on Arcadia’s campus. The rich community at Arcadia has inspired students in the graduate Public Health department to continue creating opportunities for student involvement, and attempt to improve on our already fantastic campus. The faculty in the Public Health department have inspired a group of us to create a community garden in an underutilized corner of campus that will encourage students to work collaboratively toward sustainable goals and help the student population and surrounding community. A garden would not only give purpose to the area, but could create a place for students to gather and socialize. Current research has demonstrated that community gardens are excellent locations for building social capital and are useful for stress management within their communities. The primary objective for this project is to encourage sustainability on campus: the plants we grow would either be donated to our on-campus food pantry, used for student events as giveaways or food served at the event, as well as given to food banks in the Glenside/Philadelphia area.
Arcadia University Public Health Society
Arcadia University Community Garden
Jiana Saigh and Michelle R Odelberg, two passionate Arcadia University graduate students and campus liaisons with the American Public Health Association speak about their efforts to start a community garden on Arcadia’s campus. The rich community at Arcadia has inspired students in the graduate Public Health department to continue creating opportunities for student involvement, and attempt to improve on our already fantastic campus. The faculty in the Public Health department have inspired a group of us to create a community garden in an underutilized corner of campus that will encourage students to work collaboratively toward sustainable goals and help the student population and surrounding community. A garden would not only give purpose to the area, but could create a place for students to gather and socialize. Current research has demonstrated that community gardens are excellent locations for building social capital and are useful for stress management within their communities. The primary objective for this project is to encourage sustainability on campus: the plants we grow would either be donated to our on-campus food pantry, used for student events as giveaways or food served at the event, as well as given to food banks in the Glenside/Philadelphia area.
Comments
Represented by Jiana Saigh and Michelle R Odelberg American Public Health Association Campus Liaisons
About:
Jiana Saigh, Dual Degree Master of Art in Counseling/Master of Public Health My name is Jiana Saigh, and I am a second-year graduate student in the dual degree Public Health and Counseling program. I am interested in the field of Maternal and Child Health, with an emphasis on working with minority women who are experiencing Postpartum Depression. I work at Maternity Care Coalition as an Early Headstart Advocate in addition to my studies. Also, I am a part of a team working to create and build a community garden on our campus.
Michelle R Odelberg, Master of Public Health Michelle is in her second year of the Master of Public Health program. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado, majoring in Integrative Physiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. After spending most of her life thinking she wanted to practice clinical medicine, she changed course after falling in love with public health while working with low income populations in an emergency department. Personal research interests include sexual and reproductive health and health care policy; both of which she is able to explore through her internship with the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, her work as a research assistant to Dr. Margaret Longacre, and through volunteer work with the Nurse-Family Partnership's Coalition for Lactation-Friendly Schools. Michelle is the Arcadia University Campus Ambassador for the American Public Health Association and as well, as serves as a leader of the Graduate Student Group for Public Health.