Wellness Heroes: Bryan Alexander

What do an Ironman triathlete, a lettuce-loving garden expert, a competitive college co-ed and an advocate for healthy body image have in common? All are doing their part to improve the lives of individuals and families in the Baton Rouge area—and beyond. We talked to each of these inspiring leaders to learn more about what motivates them to get people moving, eating healthy and embracing their inner beauty.

How does digging in the dirt fit into an elementary school student’s academic world? Bryan Alexander and Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge, a pilot program by Slow Food Baton Rouge, are aiming to show that learning to grow and cook healthy foods is a natural complement to math and science. Greauxing Healthy works with students at four schools in Mid City, Old South Baton Rouge and Scotlandville, providing weekly classes in nutrition, gardening and cooking.

225: Tell us a little about your background and how you got interested in gardening.
BA: My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression, and like a lot of people from that generation, they grew most of their own food. When I was a kid, all summer long my family spent mealtimes enjoying fresh zucchini and heirloom tomatoes, and I guess that creates a certain expectation of what food and family can mean.

225: How did that later develop into a passion for helping communities sustain themselves by growing healthy food?
BA: When I started, the issue about which I was most passionate was seeing farmers get fair compensation. But the more you do this kind of work, the more it becomes clear that all the disparate threads—farmers’ pay, community health, stewardship of the land, horticultural knowledge and more—are all tied first to building a culture that understands how food is grown, values the people who grow it and actually wants to emulate their examples.

225: How are the efforts of Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge benefiting local kids?
BA: The Sprouting Healthy Kids program in Austin, after which we’re modeled, has been demonstrated to increase students’ daily vegetable and fruit intake by at least one serving, and we’re hoping to emulate their success. On a less quantifiable level, we strive to provide hands-on enrichment to classroom activities, to help them find and develop their passions and to connect with role models who have found careers in food work and the sciences.

225: Tell us how Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge is engaging kids at school and in the community.
BA: We tailor our programming to the specific needs and wants of each school. At Dufrocq Elementary, we place our focus more heavily on garden activities that provide enrichment in science and social studies, while our program at University Terrace‚ which already has an excellent gardening program through University United Methodist Church, is designed to focus almost entirely on cooking and nutrition.

225: Why is this such an important cause for you?
BA: We’re not trying to teach the next generation of farmers, but we’re trying to ensure that the next generation of doctors, lawyers, artists, teachers, engineers and farmers has an appreciation for where their food comes from. A lot of people in my life have gone out of their way to teach me that lesson‚ that community develops around food‚ and I’d just like to pay that forward, to play a small part in building a system that really pays attention to the people who grow food and to the people who need good, fair food the most.

225: Are there any memorable moments that you’d like to share?
BA: It’s mostly little things, like the Baton Rouge FLAIM students who ask every week if we have satsumas for snacks or the kids at Dufroqc who are always asking to pick a leaf here or there to try something new. We did have a third-grader ask if we were going to plant sausages; I guess it means we could be doing our job a bit better, but it’s actually pretty encouraging that he was connecting the food he liked with the idea that it had to come from somewhere.

225: What do you love most about your involvement with Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge?
BA: The best moment for me was definitely when an administrator at Dufroqc flagged me down in the hallway and said we need to sit down and figure out how to do a summer program there. Or being told that teachers were clamoring for bed space next year at BR FLAIM. We’ve received such a warm welcome, and it’s hard to overstate how much that encourages us to keep pushing ahead.

To volunteer, donate or get more information, visit slowfoodbr.org.