Published on November 19th, 2009

Greenhouse project to improve nutrition in village gets $10,000

By ALEX DEMARBAN

Share via G-Mail Share via Yahoo Mail Share via Hotmail Share via Buzzster Share via Delicious Digg this article Share via Fark Share via FriendFeed Share via Reddit Share via Stumbleupon Share via Twitter Share via Yahoo Buzz Share via Facebook Share via MySpace Change article font size Print this article Email this article Send this article to Promobot

A teacher's dream to build a greenhouse so students can grow fresh veggies in the village of Quinhagak will likely become reality thanks to a $10,000 grant from former celebrity talk show host Jenny Jones.

In a surprise phone call, Jones rang up the teacher, Sherry Pederson, at the school on Thursday, Nov. 19, to announce the award.

About 50 students and a group of teachers gathered in the room to hear the call over the intercom, participants said. A reporter also listened to the conference call.

About 660 people live in the Southwest Alaska village, where a lack of roads to other cities means everything is shipped by barge or airplane, pushing up prices for fruits, vegetables and everything else.

Pederson is an English language development teacher currently on leave to care for her two young children. But she still helps the school with testing.

The school's site administrator, who happens to be her husband, Eric Pederson, told her go to the room for a work meeting.

After she arrived and learned there was no work meeting, but a phone call from the former host of the Jenny Jones Show, she said she was overwhelmed by the good news.

"Wow, thank you," she said more than once.

Pederson said she came up with the greenhouse idea because she loves gardening and her students always take an interest in the tomato plants she grows in a back room.

If students grow their own food in the greenhouse, they might eat less junk food and eat more vegetables, she said. She ticked off a list of vegetables she wants to grow there, including carrots, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, radishes, green onions and parsley.

Jones said during the call that she spoke with Pederson's husband earlier and learned the family has no toilet, prompting outbursts of giggles from the audience.

"I guess that's kind of normal out there but boy, over here, that's definitely what I'd call a hardship," said Jones, who lives in Los Angeles.

The night before the call, the former host of the show said she made a lot of money from the talk show (which ended in 2003 after a 12-year run) far more than she ever expected.

So she decided to create a foundation and sprinkle that money around the country to support projects that benefit communities.

The project proposed by Pederson beat out about 10,000 applications, Jones said.

Knowing that getting fresh veggies in Quinhagak is difficult, and that poor nutrition contributes to a host of illnesses, including diabetes, Jones said she couldn't deny the request.

"It was a no-brainer," she said.

To learn more about Pederson, and about Jones' effort, visit www.jennysheroes.com(http://jennysheroes.com).

(Editor's note: An earlier version of this article referred to Sherry Pederson as Sherry Marousek, the name used by Jenny's Heroes. Marousek is Sherry's maiden name.)

Alex DeMarban can be reached at alex@alaskanewspapers.com, or by phone at (907) 348-2444

 

Copyright 2010

The Tundra Drums is a publication of Alaska Newspapers, Inc. This article is © 2010 and limited reproduction rights for personal use are granted for this printing only. This article, in any form, may not be further reproduced without written permission of the publisher and owner, including duplication for not-for-profit purposes. Portions of this article may belong to other agencies; those sections are reproduced here with permission and Alaska Newspapers, Inc. makes no provisions for further distribution.