Garden classes take root

FARMINGTON – There are some students who pass around the care of a class hamster or guinea pig during summer vacation, shuttling the cage from one begrudgingly committed parent to the next. But for the students of four elementary schools in Franklin County, that summer commitment revolves more around cucumbers and pumpkins than furry, four-legged creatures.

“I have spent so many summer days at our school garden, in addition to my own garden at home,” Kingfield Elementary School Kindergarten teacher Selina Warren said. “We’ve gotten pretty organized about it, but it took a long time.”

KES operates on a rotation of student volunteers. The kids and their families sign up by the week to take care of the school’s four raised beds throughout the summer months, ensuring that there will be plenty to harvest and eat when classes start back up in September.

Warren volunteered to spearhead the project when she arrived at KES six years ago, and only in recent years has it truly become a way of school life for staff and students alike. For Warren, adding a school garden and the appropriate curriculum to go with it was a no brainer. It was part of her teaching philosophy, she said. But that isn’t always the case for schools in general, and it takes hundreds of committed hours to get a garden class well established.

A grant recently awarded to the Greater Franklin Food Council will make that job easier for KES, along with Stratton Elementary, Phillips Elementary and Cascade Brook School. The funds will work to hire a School Garden Coach who will be shared by the four schools. The individual will take some of the work load off of teachers like Warren and Katie Wuori of Stratton Elementary, who also volunteers as the school’s Garden Coordinator.

“It’s so exciting. This is really huge for all of us,” Wuori said.

The School Garden Coach will not only support Wuori and Warren in the continuation of their garden efforts, but will help better establish a gardening program at CBS and Phillips, including the actual soil and plants, as well as curriculum and a summer volunteer force.

“At community events over the past few years, when we talk about how to make a stronger food system locally, we have always come back to the ideas of hands on learning for students and educating about healthy eating,” Greater Franklin Food Council steering committee member Erica Emery said.

The grant was awarded by the Maine Community Foundation, the Sandy River Charitable Trust, and New England Grassroots Environment Fund. The Healthy Community Coalition already helps with school gardens, as well as the nutrition side and teaching classes about healthy eating to the students.

Wuori said the healthy eating piece is a huge part of their garden curriculum. The kids start their own seeds, learn about the life cycle of plants, and eventually get to eat what they grow right in their own cafeteria. The school hosts a cooking day and Harvest Festival every fall that is open to the community and is always a big hit, Wuori said. They hope to eventually build a three season green house in order to grow food year-round.

Warren, too, said KES has big plans around outdoor learning.

“Especially given the current situation, outdoor learning is on our minds,” she said.

KES plans to build an open air classroom adjacent to the raised beds, so kids have a comfortable place to learn about all that is going on in their gardens.

“This is a wonderful opportunity. Greater Franklin Food Council is not only a group of thinking partners, but it’s a way to support each other. The wonderful part is that this person [the School Garden Coach] will link all of our gardens together. It’s such an awesome step in the right direction of working together and not having to do all of this in isolation anymore,” Warren said.

To learn more about the school gardens at each partner school, visit the Greater Franklin Food Council Facebook page to watch the videos recorded by each school.

To learn more about the School Garden Coach job description, or to apply for the position, visit the GFFC website at https://greater-franklin-food-council.square.site/.