LEWISTON — The St. Mary’s Nutrition Center was filled with amaranth, golden rod and mint as friends and allies of the Lots to Gardens program came in for the annual Community Dinner hosted by the 2011 Summer Youth Gardeners and Youth Interns.

The Summer Youth Gardeners are a crew of teenagers from Lewiston and Auburn who have spent their summer learning how to grow food, supporting adult community gardeners, participating in nutrition and cooking classes and developing leadership and job skills that they can use well after the program ends. This year 17 youth participated in the program.

Abdikadir Ismail, a Youth Intern with Lots to Gardens, welcomed attendees. “Our mission is to provide access to healthy food to our community” said Ismail, explaining what Lots to Gardens does. This year the youths decided to live this mission by turning the dinner into a benefit for UNICEF. All money raised at the dinner will go towards initiatives in the Horn of Africa where people are experiencing famine and severe drought.

These youth have learned a lot about how hunger has affected people in Lewiston and around the world. “Lewiston’s child poverty rate is almost twice the state average,” said youth gardener Naima Odowa. “We do what we can to help ensure that families in Lewiston have access to affordable fresh vegetables. Through the farmers’ markets, our community gardens and our children’s programs we impact a lot of people.”

This year Lots to Gardens supported 99 community gardeners from Lewiston and Auburn, the most ever.

Youth gardener Brendon Venable introduced the meal. “Most, if not all, of the vegetables used in the meal were grown by us in our 12 lots around Lewiston,” he said. “Any vegetables we didn’t grow came from local farms that sell produce at the Lewiston Farmers’ Market.”