It was an honor to complete this permaculture class and garden last week! We are so happy!
The staff were so excited about the establishment of a school vegetable garden. We worked with a group of grade 8 students who were equally as enamored with the class and the planting process, as were the teachers who were so excited to join in!
The school kitchen is situated right above the garden making the daily picking of fresh vegetables an easy task to include in the meals that they prepare. We discussed this with the cook and trust that the food garden will become an integral part of the school's feeding program. For some children, they would go hungry if not for the school feeding program.
We look forward to returning to the school soon to check on the progress of the garden and talk with the groundsman to support him with any of his follow up questions. We did leave him with our permaculture wisdom booklet.
The school also requested more printed copies of our booklet so that each of the children who participated in the class could also take copies home. We will be getting more booklets printed soon, and share these with the school.
Another exciting thing is that, there was a proposal brought up by the principal and supported by several of the teachers. They requested a wish for a gardening club to be started at the school as an extracurricular activity.
This is something we have been considering over the past months, as we have been working on Mission 2022, and the Growing Hope gardens we notice this a real opportunity for some schools, so it was lovely to see this school express this desire, so we know this is something that is really wanted and would really be a valuble asset.
The teachers advocated for a program like this saying that it would be amazing for more students to learn about these methods of growing vegetables and for the school to have, at least for a time, on-going support to establish this gardening club, and hopefully inspire even more future farmers.
For a program of this kind we would need to send our permaculture partners once a week for two hours in the afternoon to the school. We feel this certainly has merit and something we are considering as an area for development perhaps for 2023. If there is public and corporate sponsor supportm, we would definitely initiate and support his. If we can secure funding this year, we will do a trial term at a school in preparation for 2023.
The future is bright! We are grateful to our sponsors for believing in this vision! Thank you.
