Participants - Hawai'i Nutrition Center

Participant Testimonials

I can grow veggies even if I live in an apartment. (I now) enjoy gardening. My kids eat more veggies because of what we grow together as a family. - June 2025

I now have my own garden. I canʻt say that I am good at it but I started. It feels great! Growing my own food allowed me to be outside instead of watching the TV. - June 2025

The beans I grew using the workshop kit were soooo fresh and delicious!! I can’t buy beans at the grocery store any more because they’re overgrown, and sitting in bags so long that I’m sure they’ve lost their nutritional strength! I am now attempting to grow other vegetables. - May 2025

Very informative. Easy to understand. Family oriented. Educational. Would repeat this activity. Should be expanded and funded for ALL schools. Mahalo! - May 2025, 96786

(I learned that you need) better soil for seeds and how you can grow seeds in ordinary household containers. Grow more of my own vegetables. Nothing like eating something you grow yourself. Tastes better than store bought too. - May 2025

The bok choy workshop taught us how to grow our own veggies in a step by step hands on way. — to start a bok choy plant from seed using a newspaper starter cup we made — to transplant and care for a young bok choy plant into a repurposed plastic milk container —to plant a tomato seed and get a free large planting bag once it grew big —to find great resources from the Hawaii nutrition website. I’m continuing to garden and eat my own veggies now. - April 2025, 96744

Thanks for the wonderful workshop on growing plants in containers in our apartments. We enjoyed it very much! Several of us have been updating each other with the progress of our plants! It's a wonderful activity sharing our photos and experiences at the club meetings. I've been able to harvest the beans and shared them with family and friends at our Easter gathering. The tomato seedling took so long to grow and finally look like real tomato plants. I planted three seeds just to make sure that I got at least one plant but they all sprouted. The two I transplanted are doing very well and I have one more seedling to transplant but I needed to get more potting mix. I plan to share my extra tomato plants with my senior citizen sisters who are very impressed with my bean plants so they can have tomatoes to eat too! I sauteed my beans with some fresh mushrooms and they were at hit at Easter lunch. I was so proud to show off my bean plants to my family and friends! The beans were a very good choice for this project. They were easy to grow and produces an ongoing crop of very easy to use veggies! A very successful activity. Thank you again for this fun activity. I am very impressed with your newspaper starter pots. I've shared this with my family for them to try. - March 2025, 96826

How easy it was to grow beans, tomatoes, and eggplant. I’m harvesting vegetables from the plants I grew and cooking it for my meals. - December 2024, 96796 (Kauaʻi)

We’ve always had plants around the yard but finally taking advantage of growing edible vegetables. We appreciate the education and plants you guys provide. - May 2024, 96792

First, let me say that I appreciated the UH Food to Grow presentation and training. The presentation and kits provided made for an informative, fun and worthwhile adventure! I’ve had beans to eat and at least one tomato (MUCH better than store bought!) - December 2023, 96817

I am so excited about this. I did not know that people could use EBT to buy live plants for food. That's wonderful, and it made coming to this community market 100% worth it. - December 2023, 96744

Last night I learned how to make fried rice. I used the green beans that I grew. - September 2023, Hawaiʻi Island

Growing our own food has many benefits - August 2023

Thank you for providing such a thorough kit. It's great for people who have very little experience or no experience at all with growing plants. Often times I hear people say, "I'd like to but I don't have a green thumb." You don't have to have a green thumb. You just need to read the information in the kit and follow it. - July 2023, Hawaiʻi Island

Thank you for helping our family start a vegetable garden, it is a great way to encourage the kids to spend time outdoors instead of watching TV or playing computer games. (The kids) love to fertilize the plants and watch them grow. We look forward to planting some eggplants as our entire family enjoys Eggplant with Garlic Sauce! - January 2023, 96817

We are a plant-based family so we EXTRA appreciate being able to harvest right from our own backyard. (My son) LOVES to plant and gather and I am so pleased that he is able to know where his food comes from while appreciating the work it takes to grow these things. 🙂 So far we've planted the green beans, and the bok choy is next on the list! - January 2023, 96744

Learning how to incorporate food like beans into my meals in a healthy & delicious way. I have an easier time incorporating vegetables into my diet & for my family - December 2022, 96706

Wow, super cool program!" - November 2022, Maui

I was inspired to start growing vegetables at my home, which then led to my working in partnership with Pearl City High School to steward a vacant 1 acre plot and revitalize it as we applied for and was awarded an AARP grant! We then made a commitment to help our community grow and distribute 500 pumpkins and assorted vegetables! Encourage others to do the same. - August 2022, 96782

I am truly enjoying the planting what you eat approach to better health and savings. - June 2022, 96792

My ohana and I were just talking about planting tomatoes in our garden bed so that's super awesome of you guys to send those starter kits. - April 2022, 96792

Mahalo for this activity. The keiki had lots of fun and can’t wait to grow more. - April 2022, 96792

This is a great program! It is an easy way to help people get started. - April 2022, 96706

Wanted to thank you folks for doing the bean giveaway for our (Molokai) community. It was an awesome experience and lots of people had lots of good things to say about it. Mahalo nui. - March 2022, Molokai