This fall, the first 50 FoodCorps service members fanned out to take their posts in locations across the nation. The program -- which places young leaders in limited-resource communities for a year to deliver nutrition education, build and tend school gardens, and work on bringing local food into public school cafeterias -- is up against formidable odds. In the past 30 years the percentage of overweight children has tripled and one in four young adults are not healthy enough to be eligible for military service. These statistics are only a portion of a larger more complicated picture, one where children …

Lisa Gross.Lisa Gross is an artist and urban food activist who heads up a budding coalition called the Boston Tree Party. The group organizes the planting of pairs of heirloom apple trees around the city of Boston in the hopes of ultimately forming a patchwork of free fruit and community engagement. Inspired by what she calls the City of Apples, Gross has worked with delegations of tree stewards all around the city to transform Boston's public spaces, as well as the social and environmental health of its residents. An artist with an MFA from the School of the Museum of …