Vision

Our vision for Canada is… to teach our youth about growing their own food. We want to educate the kids on how to grow plants, care for them and then harvest. Once harvested we are showing them how to use those items in their meals or preserve them for later. Teaching our youth to grow vegetables and fruit at such a young ages cultivates the knowledge needed to be adults that grow gardens and shop from local farms. Within our school the growing of the fruits and vegetables also allows us to provide food to our schools Breakfast Program. Teaching children sustainable practices gives them the chance to have great successes in their future. We hope to expand this project from just some classrooms growing plants to a school wide garden club. This club would teach hundreds of kids each year to take pride in growing their own food.

Action

Currently through fundraising efforts and some small grants we have three classrooms growing vegetables every day. The students are responsible for the plants. They must take care of them and water them. When time to harvest the students help prepare the foods. We have had salad bars, salsa making and drying herbs. The students take great pride in being responsible for the plants and love seeing how they grow and what they can do with them. This has also allowed students to try eating things they have never had the chance to try before. We are excited to see this grow and for more of our amazing students to partake in caring for plants.

Reflection & Celebration

This project is an ongoing project that is sustainable year after year. We have been at it for many months and have grown a lot in that time. Students are happy to see the plants growing and love sharing it with their parents. Over the summer when school is out we ill take a growing break and will start up again in September and continue on throughout the school year. We have learned that children love to grow things and even learned that when they grow the items they are more apt to try eating them. We have learned that once on class starts growing all the students in the school want to do it too. We have plans to try and get more grants to add to the growing in the school and want to try and set aside money each to keep everything running.

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