(guitar music)
- Wagner, South
Dakota is located
right on the Missouri River,
towards the south
edge of the state.
The thing I love about living
in a small town like Wagner
is that small changes do
make a big difference here.
- Crow Creek Reservation
is definitely
what would be classified
as a food desert.
We have this one grocery
store, Lynn's Dakota mart here,
which is the primary
store for shopping.
We also have a couple of small
convenience store gas stations.
Otherwise, community members
have to travel to Chamberlain
which is half hour south,
or Pierre, an hour
north, to buy food.
- Some of the challenges
the children of Marty face
are, one of 'em is poverty,
and one of 'em is isolation.
They don't have access
to healthy vegetables,
or healthy food.
The food comes
from boxes or cans.
There are some kids that
have never eaten vegetables.
- Right now we are
seeing higher numbers
than we want to with
overweight and obesity,
and especially
among our children.
Physical activity, people
just are not getting
the daily recommended amounts.
We still see heart
disease, diabetes,
a lot of those
chronic disease issues
that really drive back to
nutrition and physical activity.
- Hoed these, hoed that bed.
- In Wagner, we have
two community gardens.
At both gardens we have
wild plantains growing.
They have healing oils
in them for your skin,
so we've made salves with that,
and we hope to incorporate
more medicinal plants
in the future too.
SDSU extension has sponsored
our garden programs
around our area in Lake
Andes, Wagner, Marty,
we all kind of
work together here.
I don't know if we
could make it happen
as easily without them,
so it's been a
blessing to have them.
- SDSU extension is a part of
South Dakota State University.
We're that outreach
arm, and it is exciting,
because we can
connect what's going
on in the teaching
pieces at SDSU,
and the research, and really
bring it down to their level
to what's affecting
their community
and help to solve
those problems, those
real world problems.
- Well kids, we have onions,
these ones are onions,
these are beets.
Our tribe used to be, there
used to be a lot of gardeners.
My grandma was a
huge huge gardener,
so I used that as a inspiration
to help me bring
that back to kids,
to teach them about gardening.
These lessons that
they're learning here,
they're gonna carry on, they're
gonna be able to use them
throughout their life
to teach their kids and their
grandkids about gardening.
We wouldn't have this if it
wasn't for SDSU extension.
Like, if you drive around Marty,
there's no other garden
here, so we're it.
- If we can make produce
an affordable choice
for the community,
and make it something
that they want to choose,
instead of kids surviving
on ramen and chips,
choosing a healthy snack
like an apple or a banana
on a daily basis can help
drive down the obesity rates
and the diabetes rates, and
overall make the community
a healthier place to live.
- What we feel like
we do a great job
at is that we're not
coming in and saying
this is what you have to do,
or we have the answer for you.
We really try to listen
to the communities,
bring those
stakeholders together
that maybe haven't
talked before,
or haven't even
thought about maybe
we do have an issue
or a challenge.
- After we were able to get
the stakeholders together,
we started with a variety
of needs assessments,
and then after that the
stakeholders were able
to kind of sift through
what the biggest needs were
and then choose interventions
that were going to best
suit their biggest needs.
Every time we had
community conversations
or those assessments, I
made sure to try to involve
any of our youth as
much as possible.
- Without a doubt
the shining star idea
was to improve the
playground at the park.
- Part of our hope I think is,
and whether it's through the
food pantry or beyond that,
is to help people not just
come in and need the food
or need the financial
assistance that we also provide,
but to offer them classes and
education to move beyond that,
to become more
self-reliant in a sense.
- It is so just
gratifying just to see
that the little pieces
that we can bring,
how they can change people's
lives and communities' lives.
- I have never eaten an
eggplant until this year,
so because of the gardens
and we got eggplants,
I am very thankful for that,
like it opened up a whole
new eggplant world (laughs).
(guitar music)
