LOGAN — One in five families in Utah struggles with getting a nutritious meal on the table. A class of students at Utah State University set out to do something about it.

As a part of a competition at USU called “Nourish Tank”, a spin-off of the TV show “Shark Tank”, groups of students were tasked with finding ways to solve this problem. This competition is the first of its kind.

For their entry, Senior Kennedy Perry and some of her classmates developed an idea called “Crop Cart.” It’s a program for elementary schools to use a shipping container for a community garden where their students can learn and harvest crops.

“Almost all schools have a parking lot or an adjacent field or something like that where we’ll bring these carts,” Perry said. “We feel like we can educate a younger generation about how to grow food and why it’s important to grow food. Then we can start to fix the problem from the bottom up.”

Lea Palmer is one of the students who organized the competition. She hopes the event can raise awareness about food and nutrition insecurity throughout the state.

“I think it’s a new, unique way to address nutrition security,” Palmer said. “Especially with inflation and everything that happened in the pandemic, those nutrition and insecurity rates just skyrocketed.”

The “Nourish Tank” competition will be held on Wednesday at USU, where state legislators and professionals from the agricultural industry will judge.

The winning team will receive $1,000 and implement their program across the state.