One year ago today, order On March 20, food 2009, Michelle Obama and a group of DC Public School students, the famous Bancroft Elementary School 5th Graders, broke ground on a vegetable garden at the White House.

This week, Mrs. Obama was on the cover of Newsweek, and wrote a piece for the magazine on her new initiative Let’s Move.

On Wednesday, March 17, the First Lady participated in a Newsweek Q&A Event at the Newseum, Washington, D.C. and credited the White House Kitchen Garden as a primary motivation for Let’s Move!

A couple garden excerpts:

And then we planted this beautiful garden, 1,100 square feet of pure joy. And that gave us an opportunity in a very sort of non-confrontational way to begin exploring the questions of how do kids respond to nutritious food and vegetables if they’re part of the process of growing and getting involved. That’s one of the reasons why getting the kids in the D.C. area involved in the work was critical. And their response really sent us the message that we might be ready to begin this conversation in a more comprehensive way…So, you know, the time is right.

+++

I think about where we started a year ago with the planting of this little garden. And now, we have this wonderful initiative that has the food industry coming together; and bipartisan support all over the country; parents feeling excited and support it; kids — (laughter) — you know, they’re coming. (Laughter.) We’ve got the professional sports community standing by…This is an issue that can unite the country. And it can unite us with the rest of the world, because the truth is there isn’t a single head of state or spouse of a head of state who I have met who has not been fascinated by our garden…

For a complete recap of The White House Kitchen Garden, it’s impacts, and all unrivaled coverage of all things Obama and food related, check out Obama Foodorama!