Vision

Our vision for the greenhouse project was to transform it into a useful space that would allow students to learn about sustainable practices in food production. Along with this, we wanted to develop community partnerships so that students could gain an understanding of food insecurity, as well as ways to donate to help the community using these opportunities. Furthermore, these opportunities would help students learn skills about food sustainability, growth, and production.

Action

As part of our project we grew vegetable plants from seed indoors and outside in raised beds inside our greenhouse. We used the square foot gardening technique, and planted a tower garden with broccoli, kale, cherry tomatoes, etc. We transplanted plants and used sustainable practices to water and grow the plants. We met with local experts to learn what to plant and when, and we met with community partners to find out ways to donate the plants in meaningful ways. Part of our project was to have the greenhouse as an outdoor learning space as well.

Reflection & Celebration

We’ve started to harvest the plants and in our first harvest, we donated 4lbs of food to the Community Food Share which helped 16 families in our community. We will have more harvests by the end of the school year and plan to harvest and donate approximately 20 lbs of food. We have also donated 50 tomato plants and 10 pepper plants to the Riverview Presbyterian/Iroquois Matilda Lions Club Community garden project. They have 15 raised beds and use 3 of them to grow items for the Community Food Share. It is our hope that we continue to plan with this group throughout the next year to help them get ready by growing the seedlings in our greenhouse. We will be donating our extra tomato plants to students to take home in hopes to help more families.

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