About Creating a Vegetable Consciousness
The age old question yet begs: How do we get our children and families to eat more vegetables? Enter— Planted Kingdom™ Project, a branch of Health Collectors™ LLC operating since 2003. The Browns’ healthy vortex, of creative programming and philanthropic efforts manifest what Semaj coined a—Vegetable Consciousness.
The innovative project, “Creating a Vegetable Consciousness” explores the Wonderful World of Vegetables through Science, Craft work, Painting, Music, and Theater. The 1929 comic strip character, Popeye the Sailor Man who owes his super strengthens to spinach had a tremendous effect on spinach consumption of the day. In a 2010 study, children increased spinach intake after watching episodes of Popeye cartoon according to journal, Nutrition & Dietetics.
Fast forward to 2017— Flint Water Crisis, authorities claim the water is safe to drink, Flint residents are enduring the slow process of pipe replacement and many, many people are yet using bottled water to drink, bathe, clean, and cook. Many in the community understand via a multitude of public service announcements, and medical research, there is no cure for lead poisoning. This is a fact. However, according to medical experts, the deleterious effects of lead poisoning can be mitigated with a nutritious diet rich in plant foods: leafy green vegetables, roots, fruits, seeds and more.
The good nutrition news: vegetables and fruits have long been touted by the National Institute of Health, the White House- Obama administration, nutritional scientific research, and industry as a means toward improved health.
The Planted Kingdom™ Project will utilize the expertise of noted educator artists: Dean Edith Withey and retired music educator and director, Mrs. Diane Kirksey will return as encore educators. Pierian members will volunteer to ensure BGC members have the most efficacious experience. In addition, the esteemed theater professional, Ms. Billy Lindo and designer Rosie Ray have joined the Planted Kingdom™ Project as educator/facilitators. It is an age old question: How do we get our children to eat more vegetables? The 1929 comic strip character, Popeye the Sailor Man who owes his super strengthen to spinach had a tremendous effect on spinach consumption of the day, and in a 2010 study, children increased spinach intake after watching episodes of Popeye cartoon according to study published in journal Nutrition & Dietetics.
Fast forward to 2017— Flint Water Crisis, authorities claim the water is safe to drink, Flint residents are enduring the slow process of pipe replacement and many, many people are yet using bottled water to drink, bathe, clean, and cook. Many in the community understand via a multitude of public service announcements and medical research, there is no cure for lead poisoning. This is a fact. However, according to medical experts, the deleterious effects of lead poisoning can be mitigated with a nutritious diet rich in plant foods: leafy green vegetables, roots, fruits, seeds and more.
This project is mad possible with funding from the generous inspired donation of Susan M. Kornfield. Links Incorporated, Flint Area Chapter. Thank you to The Pierians, Flint Chapter, and Zeta Beta Zeta of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, and Sharon Simeon, EdD for generous human capital. about vegetables and fruits has long been touted from National Institute of Health, the White House, nutritional scientific research and industry. But, the question yet begs: How do we get our children and families to eat more vegetables? Enter— Planted Kingdom™ Project, a branch of Health Collectors™ LLC operating since 2003. The Browns’ healthy vortex, of creative programming and philanthropic efforts manifest what Semaj coined a—Vegetable Consciousness
What is the Planted KingdomTM?
Planted KingdomTM is a destination place where wellness and better nutrition is the crown jewel. The Planted KingdomTM Experience presents a garden of nutrient-rich Á la carte courses that combine art and science into an interactive multi-media menu of healthy educational workshops, motivational lectures, theatrical performance, delectable vegetarian cuisine, and engaging festivities served-up for the entire family. Planted Kingdom’s artful inspiration fuels motivation. The extraordinary fusion of facts, fantasy, and food helps our community establish a Vegetable Consciousness.
What is Vegetable Consciousness?
Vegetable Consciousness is a state of being, an awareness, an understanding that vegetables and other plant foods are our partners in good health.
Who are the Food Guardians?
In the fantastical world of the Planted KingdomTM, Food Guardian is a title bestowed upon the two- footed humans. It is a term that suggests people are responsible for caring for the production and preparation of wholesome foods.
Goal
To create a Vegetable Consciousness
Objectives
The integrated immersion curriculum of the Planted KingdomTM Project, Creating a Vegetable Consciousness through Science, Art, Craft Work, Music and Theater intends to:
a) Awaken and teach the inherent benefits related to the consumption of the plant based world of vegetables
b) Make the desire for vegetables an important part of participants daily nutritional lives
c) Understand the relationship between plants foods and good nutrition
d) Use the art of science, painting, theater, music and craft work to stretch the imagination and garner creative energy to fuel healthier nutritional choices
e) To understand the concept of live food.
f) To introduce Plant Cell Studies and the importance of chlorophyll to the production of food
g) To illustrate healthy eating through a theatrical food justice paradigm
Carrot cross section from Vegetable Anatomy 101 
Carrot cross section from Vegetable Anatomy 101 
Carrot cross section from Vegetable Anatomy 101
WORKSHOPS
In Search of Chlorophyll
Instructor – Semaj Brown
A seed not yet germinated is a thought not yet actualized.
Seeds require optimal conditions to expand into greater beings from a state of potentiality. Seeds are the behind the scenes aspect of the production. But, how do we activate the potential of a child into a greater being? While sun, water and pollen are necessary to spark seed growth, it is inquiry that ignites the programming of the Planted Kingdom™. Creating a Vegetable Consciousness (CVC, fertilizes the mind with questions that in turn generate ideas. CVC initiates as a mystery — searching for chlorophyll. What is Green? Where does Green hide or live? Cofounder, author educator of the Planted Kingdom™ Project, Semaj Brown probes via microscopic studies, (using the scientific method) in plasmolysis experiments with a little help
from Elodea Plant cells, sodium chloride, and magnetic resonance imaging of vegetables.
Vegetable Anatomy 101
Instructor – Rosie Ray Henderson
Get Rooted, Stay Rooted!
Hidden! Roots are branches that grow underground like a good secret. Many concealed structures of the plant world are vital to life. Craft-master and fashion designer, Rosie Ray helps club members to discover those concealed structures, sometimes microscopic. Once revealed, club members bring what was inside— out via the building of life-size vegetable parts, (organelles). By facilitating lessons in vegetable morphology, club members can analyze form and function of vegetable structures, and ask the important question: What are the unseen vital parts of their community? Insights are gained by recreating plants’ transportation system on the xylem and phloem highway? Where will this thoroughfare lead the club members? Perhaps to — Vegetable Anatomy 101 or to the new Co-op grocery store in North Flint or to the beloved Farmer’s Market!
Painting Vegetables Alive!
Instructor – Edith Withey
Challenging the Living/ Non living Binary
Stems lift leaves to the sun. Visual art is an aesthetic elevation reflecting the light of the color spectrum. Stems grow as do students when stretched by luminous imagination dipped in hue, and cultivated by visual artist/educator, retired Kettering University Dean, Edith Withey. In this class, Painting Vegetables Alive, vegetables are abstracted, brush stroked into life onto super canvases, giving new meaning to the idea and reality of — vegetable, a complete living thing—an active individual in the garden, on the plate or painted to paper. Boys and Girls Club members will also enjoy a special Saturday designed to further expand the blending of science and art. Students will experience the awe and whimsy of glass being blown like a mind floating in wonder at the beautiful gallery/workshops, in the new wing of the Flint Institute of Arts.
Squash Opera
Instructor – Diane Kirksey
Fantasy, Facts, Food and Fun!
These are the tenets of the Planted Kingdom™ where people see music in their ears, and leaves are in the unique business of making food through the process of singing photosynthesis. Music director Diane Kirksey manufactures a different kind of food, food for the soul; she makes music. Club members will be immersed in song as they learn The Squash Opera, authored by Semaj Brown and directed by the retired Flint Public Schools educator, and youth music director, Diane Kirksey. The focus is on the tone and harmony of laughter as students transform into singing vegetable leaves that tout the difficult plight of the Squashes. The Squash opera is a made for family comedic composition with a serious message.
Vegetable Theater
Instructor – Billie Scott Lindo
Theater is a Full Flower in Blossom.
In plant development, the flower ushers in the fruit. Theater is the fruit. In this genre of dramatic performance where all vital parts: the seed of inception, the rising stem in the form of a script emerging, the leaves as actors, converge in the ultimate resolution in the fruit of Vegetable Theater! Children’s Theater director/actor, and McCree Theater veteran, Billie Scott Lindo will utilize her expertise to introduce the magical thinking of the Planted Kingdom™ into compelling performing arts. The script derives from Onion Revolt: A Healthy Comedy where students become rooted fruit and vegetable performers who dramatize the issues in the Planted Kingdom™ which seem to be curiously caused by those Two-Footed humans. Hmm?