Wrapping up the National Gardening Association Adopt a School Program

Back in 2006, our Garden Coordinator Kenya Fredie registered ORCA into the Adopt a School Garden Program within the National Gardening Association (NGA). This program offered ORCA $2500 in funds for our garden as well as a special opportunity of a visit from local farmer. NGA believes that gardening helps children grow — mentally, emotionally, and physically. School gardens help students connect with nature and better understand where their food comes from, and they provide a context for teaching nutrition and encouraging healthy lifestyles. Gardens also provide opportunities for hands-on learning in subjects across the curriculum. With this in mind, the NGA gathers and distributes charitable funds to help school gardens thrive. In Orca’s case, the funds straddled one year at our old Columbia Campus, and the transition to our Whitworth campus. Our goal has been to sustain our momentum with the program and broaden it to include environmental and nutritional opportunities in learning for the ORCA community while awaiting the construction of the new greenhouse and garden beds for fall of 2008.

Due to the generosity of NGA, the Garden Committee was able to build compost bins and worm bins at our new site to make the school’s carbon footprint smaller.

Compost Area before Work Party

Compost Area after Work Party

NEW compost bins

The goal is for all our organic food waste to be recycled by the red wiggler worms (see article on vermicomposting) to enrich the soils of our raised beds at the school. With the guidance of our new Environmental Education & Garden Coordinator, Rita Howard, both classroom worm factories and larger cafeteria bins have been set up with the children’s help.

Classroom Worm Factory

Classroom Worm Factory

We were also able to use funds for the buying a sturdy recycled plastic table with benches attached for an outdoor classroom with covering for small groups of kids to use as they work on the native plant nursery and other outdoor projects.

Outdoor Classroom Table with kids

So, to review, the National Gardening Association program began in the late fall of 2006 with organic seeds sent to us by the NGA.  Some of these seeds were sewn into the salad garden bed which provided fresh organic vegetables to the children during recess, snack time, & after school. The Nutrition Committee was able to have several salad days for kids out of this flourishing bed. Also the grazing greens (indian mustard, red leaf lettuce, arugula) & nasturtium petals were part of Orca's Staff Appreciation gifts. Parent Volunteers created beautiful green and purple bouquets, which brightened our show of great appreciation! The heirloom varieties of tomato seeds NGA sent were sewn into soil by the little hands of Orca children as well. Once the first true leaves appeared, the kids transplanted into bigger pots, & then even bigger pots. These healthy tomato starts sold like wild fire at our Plant Sale, spring 2007 The remainder one gallon potted tomatoes were given back to our larger community via food banks, P Patches, churches, senior centers, neighboring schools, & friends. It started with a few packets of seeds, in a box from Vermont, and ended up offering many families in Seattle organic tomatoes!

A wonderful opportunity within this program was the visit from dairy farmer Sam Styger from Chehalis in the spring of 2007. Sam spent the day at ORCA in the greenhouse with rotating classrooms of children. The kids were excited to meet a real live local farmer. This farmer was a delightful young woman, a fourth generation dairy farmer who has helped her parents since she was little, and hopes to take over the family business when her parents retire. The Styger family farm has no employees (so the family of 5 puts in long hours each day) and 70 Holstein cows on about 100 acres of lush pastureland. The children got to hear about how it is to be a farmer in 2007, complete with pictures of newborn calves and tastes of string cheese.

The Garden Committee, teachers and parents all thank Organic Valley and the Adopt a School program within the National Gardening Association for stretching our children’s knowledge about farm to table connections and the many benefits of local organic foods, and for helping us to bridge our program as we move sites to the new Whitworth campus after 17 years of growing our garden program at Columbia.   We hope to resume thriving in our new spot!