Today, one in three Americans is clinically obese and in Philadelphia, close
to 30% of residents eat 1 or fewer servings of fruit and vegetables per day!
In an
effort to reverse these trends, the Public Health Club is creating a community garden at PCOM. We
fervently believe that our responsibility as future physicians lies not only in treating those
suffering from obesity-related health conditions, but also taking an active role in prevention.
This community garden aims to benefit all members of the PCOM family as both a shared green space
and a source of fresh produce. Most importantly, the garden will be open to patients from the PCOM
Family Medicine Clinic who will be matched with first and second year students. Our hope is to
engage patients who would like improve their health status and provide them with both free produce
and the information necessary to make a lasting lifestyle change. Over time, we will conduct a
retrospective monitoring the impact a community garden can have on participants’ health and
hopefully export our model to other medical schools.
Please join the PCOM Public Health
Club as we begin PCOM’s first community garden and own a piece of this novel program through your
custom engraved brick purchase. We will be creating a brick path extending from the courtyard
adjacent to Evans Hall down to the garden. Your inscribed brick can celebrate your time spent at
PCOM, honor a current student, or express your family’s support for the project. With your
donation, you will receive a personalized acknowledgment of your gift, a certificate with the
brick’s location, and a lasting legacy you can visit during your next trip to campus.
Healthy living begins with healthy eating.
Please join us in taking the first steps towards
PCOM’s Community Garden.
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