Crow Wing Energized Launches “One Vegetable One Community” At Crow Wing County Fair

On Tuesday, Crow Wing Energized hosted an event called “One Vegetable One Community” that encouraged locals to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Five local community members dressed up as vegetables and “debated” why they were the top vegetable in an effort to encourage people to plant, grow, and share a single vegetable.

“Not in a million years did I think we would be voting for your favorite vegetable, but if it gets people on board for eating more vegetables, I’m all for it,” said Kim Rollins, Executive Director of the United Way of Crow Wing and Southern Cass Counties.

“This is probably the most prestigious thing I’ve done in my life and probably the highlight, I can never live up to what I did today,” said Crow Wing Energized Health Specialist Kalsey Stults.

“It was fun, I like vegetables a lot, my favorite part is when [the] pepper jumped up and down,” said Pillager resident Landin.

Moderating the event was “farmer” Dan Hegstad and the vegetables were zucchini, tomato, pepper, green bean, and carrot. Even if the event was quite quirky, it still brought in a very large crowd.

“Something that I learned with this area is when we have an event, people show up, especially fun events like this,” said Nisswa Elementary School Principal Molly Raske.

“It was really awesome to see people out in the crowd who were getting into it, afterwords people communicating, people getting pictures, asking for the buttons,” said Stults.

The Crow Wing Energized vegetable debate had the crowd laughing nonstop, but it’s also important to remember the purpose of this event – to eat more fruits and vegetables.

“I think people need to think about eating healthier and choosing a vegetable they like and really committing to it for a year, we really need to eat more fruits and vegetables,” said Manager of Business Development at Heartland Hospices Mara Pointer.

“Right now I think it was like 65% of Crow Wing people are not getting the amount of fruits and vegetables that they should be taking in,” said Rollins.

“Whether it’s carrots, or zucchini, or peppers, there’s a lot of ways to just simplify it and make it manageable,” said CEO of Brainerd YMCA Shane Riffle.

“Being the principal of the school, I see what kids eat and don’t eat on their plate, and so I think it’s important for students to know how important it is to eat vegetables and fruits and have a well-rounded diet,” said Raske.

After the success from this year’s event, possible plans are already being made by Crow Wing Energized to host a fruit debate for next year.