The Environmental Club and the Students United for a Healthier Tomorrow Club joined forces to sustain the new student food garden located next to the Student Health and Wellness Center after they cut the ribbon Thursday, March 5.

Founder of the SUHT Club Wilfrido Hernandez cut the ribbon, announcing the opening of the garden.

He said, “Ron Finely is like one of my biggest heroes, so he inspired that. He does a lot of gardening for underserved communities and I felt like Cerritos College needed a garden.”

According to Hernandez, from a health aspect he believes that people should be provided with the healthiest choice of foods.

“I felt like students weren’t being provided with the best types of foods; [you’ve] got Taco Bell, Frantone’s Pizza, and not to bash on them, because they probably bring a lot of food for the students, but I just felt like this could later on be a partnership with the Culinary Arts division and we would provide them with clean organic produce,” he said.

Dr. Ralph Casas helped start the idea of a community garden after Hernandez went through his Health and Occupations 100 course.

“The Community Garden is sponsored-owned by the SUHT Club,” Hernandez said. “It’s co-founded by me and Dr. Casas, I met him through the farm technology program here at Cerritos College.”

Casas said that the idea came about after discussing the obesity and early death from diabetes in the area.

He said, “People in this community [have] access to unhealthy foods, so the idea started in 2012, but we didn’t get the project going until 2014. That was when we got permission to use this garden area.”

President of the Environmental Club Vanessa Martinez held the ribbon that was cut by Hernandez to mark a partnership with the SUHT Club.

She said, “We are uniting for the garden. Eventually we would like to expand it to the grounds located in between the pool and baseball field.”