A community garden brings people together, and the new Garden of the Saints is already bringing Churchville-Chili students together – with each other, with others in the school community, and with district neighbors.
The garden project is the brainchild of teacher Patti Saucke’s sixth-graders, who researched the feasibility of creating a garden. They surveyed fellow students to see if there was a reliable market for a salad bar with home-grown vegetables in the school cafeteria, and presented their findings and a detailed proposal to the Board of Education on April 14. Ground will be broken for the new garden this spring behind the Operations and Maintenance House on Fairbanks Road.
The project is much more than a simple garden. The goal is to integrate math, science and technology, English and communications into the project. “Our Middle School students researched nutrition and plant growth requirements to choose the best mix of vegetables and herbs. The garden beds are being designed by Applied Geometry classes at the High School. The raised beds and watering system will be built by the Technology classes. Science classes will focus on environmental and sustainability factors including pH and fertilizers to optimize plant growth,” said Advisor and Instructional Coach Andrea Lynch. “The harvest will be used in the Middle School cafeterias and our Family and Consumer Sciences cooking classes.”
The business and education community has come together to support this project with needed resources. Financial supporters of this project include the following: Lowe’s Toolbox Grant, Food on Parade, Wegmans, Ace Hardware, Lowes, Guldenschuh Logging and Lumber, The Garden Factory, Rochester Topsoil WNY, Home Depot, Town of Riga and Harris Seeds. STEM Coach Leslie Tanner and Special Education teacher Connie Pocock, along with Saucke, Judd and Lynch, collaborated with other community gardens. This Garden Team has been coordinating student learning activities around gardening across all grade levels since the fall of 2014.
“The challenge now is getting the community involved,” said Lynch. “We need volunteers to help maintain the garden over the summer, when school is out. A very small amount of time every week, weeding and watering, will help us keep the community garden growing. Our summer harvest will be shared with community food cupboards.” The committee is also looking for donations of tools and gardening supplies. To sign up to volunteer, use the interactive calendar found at: www.cccsd.org/garden. To donate items to be used in the garden or to communicate questions, contact Andrea Lynch at alynch@cccsd.org.
Provided information
