Beginning with the hip hop generation and worsening with each generation thereafter, the youth have become accustomed to eating a variety of unhealthy foods.  Now and Laters, Hot Flamers, soda, candy bars, fast food, and processed foods have become a staple in their diets.  Eating such foods has contributed to the increase in obesity, diabetes, and other diseases related to improper nutrition.  Hip hop culture, especially rap music has been used to promote unhealthy eating habits.  Hip hop is by no means the creator or perpurtrator of the mass marketing of unhealthy snacks, but it is merely a tool being used by corporations to make their products more appealing to children and young adults.  Also, over the past few decades society has become wasteful and extravagant with our resources.  As a result, many viable resources, water for example, has become scarce or unavailable for human consumption.  The program seeks to reverse the idea of wastefulness of our resources and respect for the land. The garden will stress the importance of eating fresh fruits and vegetables and eating a balanced meal. The gardening program will introduce gardening and improve the relationship between humanity and the earth. 
H.I.P.H.O.P. Scholars seeks to reverse the trend of using hip hop culture to promote excessive consumption, materialism, and prodigal behavior that ruins the earth, exploits the masses, and any benefits are for the few.   You can see rap music, rappers, or hip hop language and clothing being used to push liquor, fast food chains, soda, candy, and the ubiquitous desire to consume.

The increase of childhood obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, and the reduction of exercise have resulted in our youth experiencing a reduction of life expectancy.  Coupled with the recent outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli, and other food born ailments has caused a great deal of alarm within our community.  Through observation alone, one can see our children consuming an abundance of high calorie sugar filled or salty snacks, sometimes eaten as a substitution for a meal.  Neighborhood corner markets help to perpetuate this behavior by offering relatively low priced goods while their selection of fresh fruits and vegetables are nonexistent, overpriced, or questionably fresh.  As an alternative to multinational corporations’ idea of a satisfying snack, we want to provide our youth and the working class population with a healthier alternative.