From Arkansas: School Garden Winter Update from Melinda Smith

Melinda Smith and her colleagues at her Jonesboro, Arkansas elementary school have successfully created the kind of program that is vitally important in the world we are all facing today. In their hands-on “garden classroom” kids learn lessons that incorporate basic science, math, nutrition and the environment. They produce the vegetables and greens used in the “teaching kitchen” where they prepare and cook their produce, learning to make and enjoy healthy meals. Melinda’s challenge is to keep the garden going, move ahead and expand the program.  Read More About the Program

After our busy fall season, we use our garden classroom time in the winter months to be creative with the garden’s bounty both for learning, fun and to do fundraising planning.

(L) Last harvest before frost
(R) Salad making from last lettuce harvest - 6th graders

When the garden is quiet in winter we can cook and craft in the student kitchen with the herbs we harvested from the gardens that the kids have either dried or frozen in ice cubes.

(L) The veggie trug, purchased with Renees Garden customers’ donations, lets us grow
food for our rabbits even in freezing temps.
(R) Our two rabbits, Oreo & Coco live in one of our outdoor classrooms

There’s time now to research new things we want try for the next year, plan for our greenhouse planting for our Spring Sale and plan for our own school garden planting. Since we have unpredictable weather in Arkansas, we do have random and unseasonably warm days when the students and I can do outdoor activities or work in the garden to keep the beds clean.

(L) Greenhouse activity in the winter
(R) Yoga on a cool sunny day

Since our school has an important central theme of environmental consciousness, we look for “upcycling” crafting that we can add to our Spring Sale and for our local farmers market appearances. We received a large collection of wine corks and it was the students’ job to research possibilities and to come up with their own ideas to make items that we could craft and sell to raise money for the garden. From the corks and dried materials from the garden, they designed Christmas ornaments, cork garlands,  cork trivets, earrings, necklaces, key chains, and note pin boards. We also collected discarded CDs and DVDs and made into drink coasters.

(L)Trivets and wall plaque
(CTR) Cork Christmas ornaments
(R) Santa ornaments made from dried okra.

Our most current project is crafting aprons made from old jeans. The students have ownership because they have to find and donate the old jeans. Parents, grandparents, local master gardeners, school staff and fans of our school serve as volunteer seamstresses for the actual apron sewing.

(L) The Apron Project has been a big success.
(R) Aprons from donated jeans made with generous Master Gardener help.

All of these winter activities are both “hands on” learning opportunities for the students and also very helpful towards achieving our goal of our financial sustainability for our Garden to Kitchen educational program and for the care-giving of our school animals throughout the year.

Snow in the garden classroom

LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO HELP: When you donate money Renee's Garden will match up to $500 of the total donations.

Donation checks may be sent to:
Jonesboro Public Schools
2506 Southwest Square
Jonesboro, AR 72401
Attn. Finance Department: For Melinda Smith’s “Little Green Thumbs” Account

Making Real Change



Renee and Heidi Do Donations

One of the great things about having a seed company is the opportunity to get involved with inspired people doing amazing things that accomplish positive change every day. My emphasis is on “doing” and “accomplishing” because of people like Melinda Smith and her colleagues at her Jonesboro, Arkansas elementary school, who have successfully created the kind of program so vitally important in the world we are all facing today. I want to tell you a little about it and then ask you to join me in supporting this work.

Jonesboro is in Northeast Arkansas, an area that is relatively poor and rural with about 70% of the students coming from low income families. The city of about 90,000 is surrounded by large corporate farms - the kind that farm thousands of acres of soybeans, rice and cotton, often by corporate "farmers" who live elsewhere. The Jonesboro public school system established a magnet school program in 2007, revitalizing all of their elementary schools. Melinda Smith's school chose Health, Wellness and Environmental Studies (HWES) as their school focus.

Melinda Smith and students in the Nutrition Lab

Starting from scratch, coordinator Melinda and a team of seven teachers and administrators researched and visited other schools and programs with the belief that they could and would create a teaching garden and kitchen program for their school, even given huge obstacles. A large percentage of the students’ parents receive food stamps, do not garden, and believe the fresh produce is beyond their finances. Many students had absolutely no familiarity at all with fresh vegetables and hadn’t ever eaten even a carrot. Starting with three Bermuda grass infested courtyards and an abandoned former cafeteria, they transformed the school and trained their entire staff.

Now, just five short years later, their HWES School has a tiny greenhouse, three outdoor classrooms with over 20 raised beds, an outdoor kitchen area and a classroom sized kitchen. Garden areas are divided into The Harvest Garden, Sensory Garden and Critter Garden (with 3 chickens: Minervia, Fred and Ethel, and rabbits Oreo and Shadow) and the abandoned kitchen is revitalized as the Nutrition Lab. All of the schools’ 1st thru 6th grade students have regularly scheduled time dedicated to garden learning as part of their day-to-day curriculum and the gifted and talented program students in grades 3 thru 6 are totally in charge of garden planning and garden maintenance - there is no other garden help on staff.

 

In their growing garden’s “classroom”, kids learn lessons that incorporate basic science, math, nutrition and the environment. They not only learn how to grow things, but produce the vegetables and greens used in the "teaching kitchen" where they prepare and cook their produce to make and enjoy healthy meals. The kids held their first plant sale last year with seedlings grown in their own little greenhouse - imagine a stand where kids sell seedlings instead of lemonade. They produce all the vegetables and greens that are used in the “teaching kitchen” lab.

 

One of their biggest challenges was working with the parents of these students, who ask questions like “what’s wrong with pizza and tater tots for school lunch” and “why should kids learn how to grow their own food?” Even when confronted with “that’s impossible,” Coordinator Melinda and the group of interested fellow teachers are dedicated to teaching kids about health and wellness, understanding that the foods kids eat has a bearing on every aspect of their lives, including how they learn, how they grow and what they become. Melinda’s program is a potent game changer which illustrates the power and value of connecting kids and growing things, and shows the tangible and intangible rewards making that connection.

The original magnet grant is history, and they’ve been operating the program now for several years by bootstrapping supplies and resources. One of the huge challenges Melinda deals with, besides frantic and persistent grant-writing to keep the garden going for the kids, is to move ahead and expand the program. We want to help Melinda’s program grow and succeed, and I want to invite our customers and friends to join with us to make it happen.

LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO HELP:  When you donate money to help Melinda's program Renee's Garden will match $500 of the donations.

Here's what to do:

Write a check in the amount of your choice to:

Jonesboro Public schools and write on it: Melinda's "Little Green Thumbs"

We know the kids will be excited and you can expect to get a note from them to show their appreciation!

Send your check to:
Jonesboro Public Schools

2506 Southwest Square

Jonesboro, AR 72401

Attn. Finance Department: For Melinda Smith's “Little Green Thumbs” Account
 

"Chef" Jim Long

Finally, I first heard about this wonderful program from longtime friend Jim Long of Long Creek Herbs, an early and stalwart program supporter who drives six hours to teach hands-on classes to the kids in Jonesboro whenever he can. You can read more about his experiences teaching at the school and about Melinda and her kids on Jim’s marvelous blog at: http://jimlongsgarden.blogspot.com

And be sure to visit the HEWES School Garden Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HWESschoolgardens