BEREA, Ky. – More than 1,600 children and their families in Kentucky are going to benefit from hydroponic kits handed out by a partnership between Save the Children and agricultural tech company AppHarvest. The organization will be distributing the kits to families in the six eastern Kentucky counties in an effort to educate children in the region about growing their own food through the Grow Green Eat Green project.

The project is an attempt to help curb increasing hunger among children in the eastern portion of the state. According to a Feeding America survey, one in three children from Eastern Kentucky will experience hunger in the near future.

Alissa Taylor, Save the Children’s Kentucky state director, said this is a time in which these skills are certainly needed. “During a time when COVID-19 is having significant, detrimental impacts on children across Eastern Kentucky – including the alarming increase of child hunger across our region – Save the Children is proud to partner with AppHarvest to educate children and families about ways to help end this vicious cycle of food insecurity in the future.”

Save the Children has helped prepare and deliver more than nine million meals as part of its coronavirus response efforts since March. In rural areas of Kentucky alone, the non-profit organization has helped distribute more than 2.5 million meals to kids in impoverished communities since COVID-19 impacted the region this spring.

The kits include tools need to help start their own indoor gardens, such as seeds, growing nutrients and supplies, pots and instructions to help them get growing. The children can also receive live instruction via video conference on how to grow their own food from AppHarvest’s farming experts, as well as learn the benefits of hydroponic farming.

“AppHarvest was founded as a benefit corporation and is also a certified B Corp, because we believe companies should be in the business of doing good,” said Amy Samples, director of community outreach and people programs. “We’re building America’s AgTech capital from within Appalachia and know that education is core to achieving that.”

Prior to starting operations at its 2.76-million-square-foot indoor farm in Morehead, Ky., AppHarvest invested more than $150,000 in starting a high-tech container farm educational program. The program retrofits shipping containers with high-tech farming equipment to teach students to grow leafy greens. The program began at the Shelby Valley High School in Pike County, located in the southeastern portion of the state, in 2018 and has since expanded to Rowan County with additional units planned. AppHarvest has also broken ground on new high-tech greenhouses in Richmond and Berea.