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WASHINGTON - A fight to end child hunger in America is growing roots in the District as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (web | news) teams up with the Food Network and non-profit Share Our Strength to build gardens for under served communities.

The first Good Food Garden was planted at the Seed School. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was in attendance, making it the second time the Obama administration has come to the school. A class of 7th graders joined him, all ready to reap the benefits of their hard work.

Seed School students spent the morning digging up top-soil and planting vegetables in the newly-dedicated Good Food Garden. It's being integrated into the charter school's science curriculum and it's the latest federal model that's designed to teach healthy eating.
"With the first lady's leadership and the garden at the White House, our peoples garden and encouragement of all USDA offices to have a garden, we're trying to get people to commit to planting, to growing, to produce their own nutritious food," said Vilsack.

Share Our Strength and the Food Network are working with the Department of Agriculture in a national campaign to end hunger for twelve million children by 2015. Organizers say there's no better place than Southeast Washington to kick off that program.

"It's a pretty serious problem here in the District. Fortunately the mayor made school breakfast universal, so kids have that opportunity. It makes a big difference," said Bill Shore, Share Our Strength executive director.

While the students sampled herbs and planted seedlings of their own, some aren't ready to give up their favorite treats, just yet.

"This is a start for me in realizing what this or what I eat and things like that, so in the future I'll be looking out for that," said 7th grader Jevian Gudger.

There are 5 more Good Food Garden that will be given to schools across the country over the summer. Since the gardens are both sustainable and relatively cheap to build, organizers are hopeful more local schools will build similar gardens of their own.

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