Tony showing off his gardening skills. Photo by Greg Ellis
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The call has been sounded, "Return to the garden!" A host of foodies, health activists, farmers, and environmentalists have promoted the idea for decades. Lately, restaurateur Alice Waters, author and activist Micheal Pollan, even our very own first lady Michelle Obama have brought it mainstream, repopularizing local, organic, garden-based diets. I and an increasing number of Americans have heeded the call and are returning to the garden in droves, not only for health and enjoyment but also to save money as food costs rise.
Many schools have followed the trend, valuing the garden as an educational resource. However, funding, logistics, and volunteer support have hampered the long-term and widespread success of school gardening in San Luis Obispo County.
Enthusiasm alone begins most school gardens. It is as critical an ingredient as seeds, water, or soil. Often one sufficiently enthusiastic parent or teacher is enough to create a school garden, rallying a PTA, school staff, administrators, and volunteers with the grand vision no one can resist — students eating healthily, exercising outdoors, and learning under the sun. But gardens founded on enthusiasm alone invite failure. Enthusiastic parents move on when their students graduate. In the absence of sufficient support, enthusiastic teachers often take on the garden in addition to their regular, paid duties. Enthusiasm wears down within a year or two as weeds, irrigation breaks, and material costs take their toll.
Braeden moving newly-potted
bareroot fruit trees.
Photo by Savanna Elliott
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You can't pay someone to be enthusiastic. You can pay enthusiastic people for the work they do. One obvious solution to maintaining school gardens is to pay teachers or hire additional staff to do it. A well-run school garden requires time investments above and beyond a teacher's regular pedagogical duties: fundraising, volunteer recruitment and coordination, organizing presenters from the community, scheduling garden-use by other classes. Gardens deserve paid staff to complete these tasks just as much as schools deserve custodians, groundskeepers, maintenance, and administrations to keep the classrooms operating. Unfortunately, in the present financial climate in our school districts, creating new paid positions is unlikely and will require extensive campaigning. It is a road worth pursuing for the long-term — but near-term solutions exist.
The simplest solution is for private entities to step in where school funding falls short. The Orfalea Foundation in Santa Barbara launched its School Food Initiative in 2009 which, among an array of nutritionally focused programs, includes a School Garden Program. Essentially, the School Garden Program works with schools to install and maintain school gardens as well as increase teacher utilization of the garden. GEMs (Garden Educator/Managers) are hired by the foundation to work directly with teachers, making garden-based education easier for teachers. One GEM can work with several school gardens each week, especially if he or she is successful at recruiting volunteers to take over garden maintenance. One Cool Earth is currently pursuing this strategy, launching pilot program with three schools in the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District: Liberty Continuation High School, Flamson Middle School, and Georgia Brown Elementary School. The program hopes to raise about $15,000 per school annually through private donations and corporate sponsorships to fund the garden coordinator position.
An even shorter-term fix for school gardens that costs nothing is for volunteer community members like yourself to step forward and make ongoing commitments to assisting in a school garden near you. The rewards are many--fresh food, exercise, and infinite gratitude from parents, students, and teachers. It can cost you as little as one or two hours per week — a little bit of time that makes a huge difference over the course of a year.
For teachers reluctant to get involved in the garden due to lack of materials or experience-the curriculum and training is out there. Garden Based Learning from Master Gardeners and County-Regional Environmental Education Center.
To find out about opportunities to volunteer in a garden near you, check out One Cool Earth.
Resources
Orfalea Foundation's Garden Program
American Gardening Statistics
