SUSSEX COUNTY, Del. - The nonprofit SNAC stands for the School of Nutrition and Agriculture. It is helping provide students in Sussex County like first grader Anna Coolbaugh with the education she needs to chase her dream.
"I want to be a chef when I grow up." said Coolbaugh.
Volunteers with the SNAC Garden Foundation teach students throughout the county with curriculum that works right into what they're learning in the classroom.
"We talk a lot about like lifecycles and where things start and how they finish and how it keeps going around - So we talk a lot about that at the beginning of the year especially with the plants, the animals, oak trees, stuff like that. This helps them correlate it with the real life and how they can use it at home." said first grade teacher at Long Neck Elementary Kelsey Gullege.
The class is taught how to build sustainable gardens like ones made with wood chips and how to grow plants that you can eat right away.
The nonprofit even helped Long Neck Elementary build a new greenhouse to expand on the learning opportunities through its program and they've proven with past classes that more agricultural education means healthier choices.
Executive Director of the SNAC Garden Foundation, Shandra Furtado said, "When students are like doing an activity with the vegetables and they're consistently being more exposed to them through the garden science lessons, they are way more likely to enjoy that vegetable."
Furtado also claimed that Delaware is losing a lot of its agriculture, "Just inspire kids to have maybe an interest or career in agriculture, environmental science, anything that will kind of help this area kind of stick to its roots in agriculture and just preserving our natural beauty around here."
The next school to participate in this program will be Howard T. Ennis, within the next year.