Growing Food for our Cafeteria
Vision
Our goal is to reduce our ecological footprint and eat locally grown food. When you grow your own food you reduce the need for transportation, electricity for stores and cut out the journey the food takes to reach you. These are some of the factors which can be costly for our environment.
We also wanted to reduce our food waste by beginning a composting program at our school.
Action
We worked with the cafeteria staff to choose our vegetable to grow. We picked carrots as they need little work during the summer months and are liked by most students.
We researched how to build a raised bed garden. We spoke to local businesses and purchased our materials for the garden.
We constructed two raised bed gardens.
We worked with the Greater Miramichi Regional Service Commission to learn about composting in schools.
We installed our new compost systems.
We planted our carrots.
Reflection & Celebration
We look forward to harvesting carrots and giving them to the cafeteria in the fall. Reducing our ecological footprint, while creating food security for our school has been empowering for our students. We are growing healthy food and it feels good to know where it has come from. The impact created is less due to it growing so close to where we are eating it.
We are also reducing our amount of garbage by composting our food waste from the cafeteria. This material is going to help us grow more food next year.