School Garden - A Growing Story

Lucas Brinson began the school garden project in the fall of 2011.  He approached his formed high school principal, Liz Bell who liked the idea and encouraged him  to work with teacher, Justin Wong who teaches the Social Justice 12 class. From the beginning of January he visited the class two to three times a week to help the teacher and students organize, research, plan, design, build, plant and harvest the food they would unwittingly soon be growing. Students developed curriculum (for elementary students and their peers at Argyle), and went out into the community to gain support from local businesses and organizations. In their respective teams, the students did the majority of the leg-work....contacting businesses, writing drafts for the grants, researching materials and best practices and spreading the idea to family, friends and those throughout the community. Vancouver Coastal Health and the Toyota Evergreen Foundation provided funding that allowed them to buy lumber, getting soil, tools, manure, seeds and plants. A good friend of Lucas' who also graduated from Argyle Secondary offered to donate and install state of the art irrigation for free as a community service project for his company. Construction was complete on May 2nd (greenhouse irrigation the last to go in. May 23rd the Spring BBQ kickoff was a complete success!

Vision:
Argyle's Urban Agriculture initiative will create a collaborative food garden that will be used and maintained by all students, teachers and community members. This project will create an enriched experiential learning environment, help foster essential food and nutritional practical skills and allow for more community engagement on food issues in Vancouver. The food garden will enable the students and teachers to contribute to local food security by donating some of the harvest to the Edible Garden Project or Quest Food Services, which has already given their support for the project. Improving the Argyle school-grounds with this healthy garden will positively affect the health of the community, the environment and the individuals who benefit from the donated produce. From the Social Justice Class, to Math, Biology,Shop and the Foods classes will all be able to access and learn with this garden. Actively involving faculty, students and community will allow for a more dynamic and direct connection with local food security and will teach how to organically grow, care for, harvest and eat nutritiously. The seed to table and back again approach (through composting and seed-saving) is a practical application of sustainability which aligns with the objectives of the School District of North Vancouver 44.