Hampstead School Community Garden
Vision
Our plan is to establish a community garden that will grow food to be shared with the students in the school and their families. We serve a community that struggles with food security so everything we can do to help is welcome. Having the gardens will help teach the students how to grow and prepare their own food and they can share those lessons with their families. We are starting small with garden boxes and hope to expand to have an outdoor classroom. We’d like to eventually be able to offer gardening and cooking lessons for families.
Action
So far we have set up four garden bins and planted vegetables and herbs. The students will be taking care of them and in the fall we will return and harvest our vegetables. After that we will have a celebration where we share food with one another. We hope to make this a yearly tradition, adding to the size of our garden and inviting the community in to share food together.
Reflection & Celebration
We have started with planting and it was wonderful watching the students learn about the plants and learn to take care of them. The students who did the planting are 6-8 years old. Many of them have never planted before. Now that they have, they have taken ownership of the gardens and check them daily to make sure things are still growing.