Chester Upland students invited to White House for spring planting

Last summer, a group of students at Stetser Elementary School in the Chester Upland School District planted and tended two schoolyard gardens as part of a healthy-eating initiative promoted by first lady Michelle Obama.

The vegetables they grew were later prepared and served in the school cafeteria.

Earlier that year, some students helped prepare the weekly menu for the meals served in all the district's elementary schools. The menus included stories of how the food related to the lives of famous African Americans or to historical events like the 1960 Greensboro, N.C., lunch-counter sit-ins.

On Monday, two former Stetser students who wrote to the first lady about their experiences and three current fourth graders will join Obama for the fourth annual White House kitchen garden spring planting. Students from western New York, Washington, Greensboro, and Ames, Iowa, are to take part as well.

Obama first planted the garden in 2009 as a way to bring attention to children's health and nutrition. Each year, she has invited some of the youngsters who have written to her about healthy eating to join her for the planting.

This will be the second time this year Obama will host someone from the Chester Upland district. In January, she invited Columbus School teacher Sara Ferguson to sit in the first lady's box at the State of the Union address.

Earlier that month, Ferguson and other teachers in the district had pledged to remain on the job even if the bankrupt district ran out of money and was unable to pay them.

After it filed a federal lawsuit against the state, the district got enough money to keep schools open, but it is still on life support and owes millions of dollars to creditors.