GROW Project
Students at Rideau Public School Grow a Healthy, Sustainable Community
Grade 5 students at Rideau Public School are participating in the GROW project, a community initiative that involves the planting, raising and harvesting of tomato plants for donation to a local food agency.
Starting on May 28, students, parents and teachers will begin to build and plant the garden on the front lawn of the school property at the corners of Toronto and Dundas Streets. Students will sign up into groups and will be responsible for maintaining the garden through June and over the summer, until the fall harvest. All fruit raised and harvested by the students will be donated to Loving Spoonful for re-distribution to local food agencies.
Parent volunteer Catherine Styles explains that the GROW project is about Community and Communication, it’s not just an art or gardening project at all. “GROW has three components: first to communicate; second to grow; and third to share,” states Styles. “Each of these components offers students a different opportunity to investigate the role of Community in our society, our individual place within the Community and our responsibilities to the Community.”
Earlier this spring, classroom activities and guest speakers introduced students to the roles of Local Food Agencies (Loving Spoonful), local food initiatives and organizations (Root Radical CSA and Living Cities Project) and local community gardens (Sunnyside Community Garden). As part of the project students will also design and paint fence panels to communicate the goals of the GROW Project to the surrounding neighborhood.
Tomato seedlings will soon be ready to plant in the Rideau GROW garden. Emily Dowling, of Root Radical CSA, has generously offered to supply the GROW Project with seedlings to start this project. Student groups will be responsible for developing a timetable to maintain the garden through June and over the summer, until the fall harvest.
Grow a Row encourages home gardeners, community gardeners, and farmers to plant an extra row of produce and donate their harvest to Loving Spoonful. Loving Spoonful is a non-profit organization that finds sources of perishable food for distribution to food banks and meal programs in Kingston. Grow a Row builds on the tradition of gardeners sharing their bounty with neighbours and friends.
For more information about the GROW Project, please contact:
Catherine Styles, parent volunteer at brodiegirl8@cogeco.ca and
Principal Michèle Babcock, Rideau Public School, 9 Dundas Street, Kingston, 613.546.5901
