School Garden Committee Meeting NOTES-- please read & respond when you can!

[Jasmine Samar Angelini-Knoll]

Hello all!

Thanks to Glen, Sarah, and Meg for coming out to the meeting yesterday evening, we had some great ideas going around that we're excited to develop with you all!

Here is my best summary of notes from the discussion:

1. The major item that we developed some ideas about was:

*Planning an event to promote public awareness of the value and potential of garden-based education!

To give us plenty of lead-time, we conceptualized this event as a Harvest Festival that would take place on a Saturday or Sunday in late October-- leaning towards a Sunday, the 23rd or the 30th.  We discussed Kanapaha Middle School (Sarah and Meg) as a potential host because they have a good space/facility for this type of community event.

The event would have a professional development component for teachers, in that we would invite teachers to participate in workshops/demo lessons in the morning on that day, and then a celebration/festive component in the afternoon, with the Harvest Festival that is open to the community, families and kids.  

Among the activities, we discussed the idea of holding state fair-type contests for the kids/schools for produce growing and food preparation (biggest pumpkin, best zucchini recipe, things like that).

We would also invite community groups/businesses related to food and farming to table and/or vend at the event.  Examples would be local farms and nurseries, Florida Organic Growers, Florida Gardening Club, etc.

So, things we need from y'all are:

*ideas for other fun & educational activities to happen during the festival

*community connections for people that would be interested in representing their organization/business at such an event

*connections of community members that might be able to lead/teach specific workshops for the teachers 

(Wendy Wilber at Extension and Jenny Seitz at Alachua County Waste Alternatives were mentioned as possible workshop leaders!)

*input on dates/days

*thoughts about advertising and ways to pay for printing publicity materials if we need to

*anything else you think could/should be included and/or that you would be interested in taking the lead on!

2. We also discussed helping to plan/support some version of the Garden and Bike Tour that happened in town last year, but with school gardens-- Meg thought we could break up the school gardens in town into regional areas (NW, NE, SW, SE) and then cover an area monthly (during peak growing times) with a tour.  This would probably directed to teachers and the families of schoolchildren in order to give those people ideas, inspiration, resources, etc. for their own schools!

3. Meg is/will be working on updating the school garden directory so that the info is accurate.

4. We just scratched the surface of a conversation about school foodservice, how to get more healthy and locally-produced food into schools... a big question with many components, and maybe more appropriate for the Policy Committee of GG, but perhaps if we can investigate the situation with foodservice contracts at some of the schools with gardens, we can work on a model/path of action to share with people who want to change how foodservice and food sourcing is done in schools... this will be an ongoing topic I'm sure!

5. Sarah and Meg are developing some curriculum materials based on their garden experience at Kanapaha and want to be able to share that with other teachers, before finalizing they want to have other teachers do some lesson testing and get feedback from them, during Fall 2011.

ETC.

*the problem of garden raiding came up... if anyone has ideas/resources on how to deal with produce being taken from school gardens, preventative and/or responsive action... let us know!

I think that's all for now-- send your thoughts/ideas about the Harvest Festival event, all connections are helpful, and we'll keep talking via email, and schedule another meeting as needed.

Thanks SO MUCH for your time and attention, and for all that you all do!

Have a beautiful week.

~jasmine

[Travis Mitchell]

So first apologies for not being in attendance, I had a personal issue that came up and it sounds like y’all had a really productive meeting and I am sorry I missed it.

 

On item 1. I think a event is great idea, and could be a huge success. I had talked to Wendy Wilber about planning something for teachers in the fall as well and I think we could get her and extension on board without too much prodding. I think the first step would be picking a day and time, making sure that the day and time does conflict with anything else. Is that football season? I think once we get a date it will be easier to get people to attend. For other school’s participation we need to make sure we get a good list of teachers and schools gardening. Both to promote events and ourselves.

 

2. I think especially if no one else that Grow Gainesville should definitely plan a bike/garden tour. Whether school specific I think that would just depend on who takes the initiative to put it all together. I would love but am finding this spring pretty busy and I don’t think a July tour would be as fun.

 

3. For the directory of schools can we make sure to share whatever we collect. Or even better add all the email addresses to the group so that anyone can send out relevant information. This should not be abused though.

 

4. I have not yet tried to convene a policy committee yet as it seemed less urgent. But there is definitely lots of work to be done and we are fortunate to have a really supportive FNS who is open and trying to improve nutrition in the schools. Which brings me to an important point that should be spread. FNS has some money for school gardens and has paid for soil for several of the gardens we have installed. So email them or I if you are interested in trying to get to some of those resources.

 

5. For the curriculum, we have some lessons plans here saved that I believe were uploaded but I can’t find the link but I will and make sure y’all get it. Also in case you haven’t seen these here is a list some other school garden resources:

School Nutrition/Gardening
Gardening for Grades, a comprehensive guide for Florida teachers to help plan, fund, create and learn with a school garden
Fundamentals of Organic Farming and Gardening - An Instructors Guide
Florida Farm2School Implementation Handbook
Florida Department of Education’s School Garden Website (including lesson plans!)
Best Practices for Using Produce from School Gardens
Florida Ag in the Classroom

 

 

So excited about the possibilities here and thank you all so much for your good work. And please let other schools and teachers know about it, and encourage them to sign up. I am working on getting a greenhouse to grow transplants for school and community gardens.

 

 

-Travis