Vision

The goals of this garden community service project are founded upon our belief that we, as a community, can grow:
An authentic, engaging, and active educational setting for deeper teaching and learning experiences.
A safe, inclusive space for people to cultivate healthy, sustainable food.
A strong sense of connectedness and citizenship within our school community and the community at large.

Action

To guide us in achieving these goals, we are mapping our way forward, through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as outlined by the United Nations. They are a call to action to end poverty and inequality, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy health, justice and prosperity. We believe that as a school community, we have the collective capacity to become leaders in achieving these Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and transforming our world.

Positioned near Macdonald Drive Elementary and Macdonald Drive Junior High, and on the Virginia River walking trail system, our Grizzly Gardens will allow for easy access to outdoor teaching, learning, and wellness opportunities.
Both the physical design of the garden and the types of foods grown in the garden will be focused on accessibility and inclusivity for all gardeners who grow with us.

While this garden project is taking place on the school grounds of the Macdonald Drive Junior High and Elementary Schools, we are working towards a vision of creating a place for everyone in our community to come together, to grow healthy food and healthy relationships. To help foster these relationships, we have reached out to groups within our community to invite them to be a part of our Grizzly Gardening team, and they have responded with a lot of enthusiasm. We are very proud to say that our community of future gardeners is focused on inclusivity with users from:

Macdonald Drive Junior High
Macdonald Drive Elementary
Tiffany Village and Kenny’s Pond Retirement Community
The Association for New Canadians
MacMorran Community Center
Food First NL

Reflection & Celebration

After two years of fundraising through various channels, we have started to grow our vision and garden. As of the writing of this document, we have begun the transformation of our half-acre empty lot into a school-community garden. We have installed and are actively growing a large pollinator garden and a strawberry and raspberry garden. We are going to install a large, fully-accessible greenhouse over the next week as well as many raised vegetable beds. With our growing season only just begun, we are demonstrating substantial, foundational growth. The school and community engagement has been fabulous.

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