Stepping Stones Inc., To Provide Special Screening of Award-Winning Documentary – GENERATION GROWTH – www.generationgrowthfilm.com – Courtesy of Quest Diagnostics.
COME MEET CAST & CREW – This is a FREE EVENT, open to the public and media, complete with Live Q/A, Step and Repeat, and photo opportunities.
When: Wednesday, August 27 @ 1 PM
Where: West Edge Factory
1040 Vernon St Suite 1
Huntington, WV 25704
Who and What:
As part of its Youth Transition Project (YTP), Stepping Stones, Inc. – a premier Child Welfare Agency – will provide a special screening of the award-winning documentary Generation Growth – www.generationgrowthfilm.com - a powerful documentary featuring internationally acclaimed educator and Green Bronx Machine founder Stephen Ritz on Wednesday, August 26, 2025, at 1 PM. This screening is courtesy of Quest Diagnostics. ✨ Stepping Stones, Inc., in Wayne County — a provider of residential treatment and independent living for foster youth — is featured prominently in this film. Learn how our journey into growing hope with the power of a plant began!
COME MEET CAST & CREW – This is a FREE EVENT, open to the public and media, complete with Live Q/A, Step and Repeat, and photo opportunities.
Film Synopsis: Poor health, diet-related diseases, food insecurity, and underperforming education continue to plague low-income and marginalized communities across the United States. Stephen Ritz, a Bronx educator who believes teachers change lives, is on a mission to change all that. He developed an incredibly successful whole-school curriculum, aligned to a data-driven indoor academic gardening program that allows children to grow vegetables in school, improving academic performance, changing eating habits, increasing classroom engagement, and providing pathways for 21st century employment. "Generation Growth" follows Ritz as he expands his low-cost, easily replicable program throughout the country, bringing passion, purpose, and hope to the communities, students, and teachers who need it most.
Says Susan Fry, Executive Director of Stepping Stones, Inc.: “To think, eight years later, that we are hosting a live screening here in Huntington, is proof positive that we are growing something greater. In partnership with Green Bronx Machine and Newman’s Own Foundation, we have gone from seed to harvest, with one of the most innovative and successful approaches in the history of residential care in all of Appalachia, including the first successful commercial greenhouse maintained by foster-care children in America along the construction of a tiny home eco-village for graduates, and we are just getting started. We are so grateful to Quest Diagnostics for bringing our story to the forefront of national attention and so excited to host Green Bronx Machine and to continue to take this work to a whole new level.”
Adds Stephen Ritz: “We are excited to get back to our roots, right here in Appalachia, where passion, purpose, hope, committed people, and vision are the special ingredients that help change outcomes for young people in ways that benefit all. This film and this moment represent an affirmation and celebration that the greatest resource in the world is the untapped potential residing in marginalized communities across our nation. Eight years ago, nobody thought this was possible, nobody thought this could work, yet here we are, with some of the most cost-effective and irrefutable data and impact ever. What started off as “impossible” has grown into a movement of “I’m possible” and the best is yet to come.”
Ritz goes on to add: “To be very clear, we are here to celebrate AND to grow something greater – to continue to ideate, iterate, and plan – we are determined to continue to change lives for the better, to change narratives, and to create new paradigms and solutions together. This film and this moment are not about giving people fish nor about teaching people to fish, it’s about collectively creating new oceans and sustainable ecosystems that nurture all of us.” Ritz goes on to express his appreciation by stating: “We are forever grateful to the folks at Newman’s Own Foundation, for seeing us, hearing us, believing in us, trusting us, supporting us, guiding us, and for helping us to facilitate our own replicable and virtuous solution – thanks to Newman’s Own Foundation, these children, and children to come, have a forever place, space, and home. We come together today with bold ideas, determined and ever mindful that we can and we will forever pay this forward. We are the folks we are waiting for! I also want to thank Quest Diagnostics for funding the distribution of our film Generation Growth, for helping us build out a website with incredible resources – www.generationgrowthfilm.com - forever empowering and enabling us and others to share our stories of success – a place where often-forgotten children from the South Bronx, Appalachia, and similar communities can become the power of example and shining lights for the world, validating that our lives matter and deserve happy endings!”
This is more than a film — it’s a movement. Come see how healthy food, education, and community can transform lives. Bring a friend and be part of this conversation of hope, healing, and growth. Generation Growth is a compelling documentary showcasing Ritz's journey as a Bronx educator tackling food insecurity, poor health and education challenges across the country. Learn how together, we will continue to change lives for the better and HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Susan Fry – Executive Director
Stepping Stones, Inc.
Stepupsusan@gmail.com
1.304.634.1982
About Stepping Stones, Inc.:
Established in 1975, Stepping Stones, Inc. is a fully licensed child welfare and behavioral health provider with fifty years’ experience in working with West Virginia’s foster youth and their families. The therapeutic milieu is family centered, and youth focused and provides youth with an opportunity to enhance cognitive competence, internalize coping skills and develop an “I Can” attitude. Through restructuring, reeducation and reintegration, Stepping Stones, Inc., seeks to strengthen the youth’s relationship with family and community. The Program passionately believes that discovering and uncovering the connectedness of the youth and his family with the community is paramount in treatment delivery. To date, Stepping Stones has generated some of the most successful outcomes in foster care treatment and been at the national forefront of child-focused, innovative, therapeutic, and healing therapeutic approaches, interventions, and treatment. For more information, visit https://steppingstonesinc.org.
About Green Bronx Machine:
Green Bronx Machine is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed non-profit that builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development. Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, their school-based
model incorporates urban agriculture and Tower Garden technology supported by their whole-school curriculum aligned to key school performance indicators to grow high performing schools and happy, healthy children. Green Bronx Machine transforms once marginalized communities into neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving. For more information, visit www.greenbronxmachine.org.
Reaching over 1,000 schools nationally and serving over 325,000 students daily, Green Bronx Machine was named a 2024 Fast Company Most Innovative Company and also offers an online educational platform, complete with instructional videos, free lesson plans, downloadable teacher resources, and an educational YouTube Channel: Green Bronx Machine KIDS! Learn more at www.greenbronxmachine.org/resources.
The organization is presently featured in an award-winning documentary, Generation Growth, which highlights their expansion and success in communities across the nation. Individuals or groups interested in hosting a “Generation Growth” in-person or virtual screening or learning about additional ways to partner with Green Bronx Machine’s mission can contact Stephen Ritz at stephen.ritz@greenbronxmachine.org or 917.873.6449.
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