The Problem
Our mission for our school garden is to make a difference in the lives of our students, their families, and our community. To create a love for learning and healthy habits. To allow our students to pour their hearts into this garden and reap the benefits of fresh vegetables, fruits, and herbs and experience the joy of helping others and the environment. This garden will be a mixture of edible parts and a native pollinator habitat. We are excited to create a lasting habitat for wildlife and to enhance the environment, all while providing fresh healthy food for all around us. These students have the most loving and caring hearts and we are dreaming BIG of making a difference now and for generations to come. The garden will be an outdoor learning classroom for all of the Bluff Dale School and community to enjoy. We will learn with nature and grow alongside it.
Our Plan
This will be a wonderful collaboration for the elementary school at Bluff Dale ISD to establish but all of the school will learn and benefit from it. Second and Third grade will be doing most of the initial labor alongside parent, staff, and community volunteers. Pre-K through first will also be helping with the planting, tending, and upkeep. Our upper elementary, junior high, and high school students will be helping with composting and conservation. The ag department is full of talented young men and women that will be helping build needed borders, structures, etc. for this outdoor learning center. Many teachers, parents, and community members are excited and willing to help. We may be small but we are a tight knit community that is full of caring individuals ready to jump in and help! The garden will be a beautiful labor of love. As you know there is much upkeep and our students, staff, and parent volunteers are ready to help with this, as well. There will be a spring and fall overhaul to shift appropriate plants for our zone and plant transplants, prune, and check soil nutrient adequacy. In addition, students will be checking the garden daily to manage any weeds, debris cleanup, and watering. Our composting will also be a daily task for students to enjoy. In the summer months, I and our leadership team will maintain the health of the garden. We will sustain the garden by love, hard work, and dedication. This is a project we are very passionate about and want to establish for now and many generations to come. We will not stop growing and bettering ourselves and our garden. We hope to get even more community involvement and therefor allow the garden to continue for an endless number of years. We wish to start a school gardening club and allow our students to expand their gardening, conservation, and environmental knowledge. We can see this opening great educational doors for our students and community. It will create a healthier lifestyle and future for all of Bluff Dale. As a small rural community, we are faced with challenges that most schools do not encounter. More than one third of our students come from low socioeconomic homes and the lack of funding and resources allocated for such schools is detrimental to student achievement. This is why myself and our leadership team wish to grant this dream for our students. It is a project that will benefit so many for generations. They deserve to have a chance to grow and thrive and become the absolute best versions of themselves. They have so much potential to make the world a better place…we just need help to provide the opportunity and resources.
