Confessions of a School Gardener.

See that guy in the corner?  Now that the days are getting shorter and the air is getting cooler, I am the one raking things up and starting a compost pile.  I am the guy who sneaks into the school cafeteria and unwraps all the little individually wrapped uneaten vegetable packs that the kids didn't eat and that is going to go into the garbage and then into landfill.  I am the guy who stops by Starbucks on my way to and from work to get their coffee grounds for the same compost pile.  I am the one who teaches kids about the worms and what not in the garden and how they are forming their own little environment; their own little ecosystem.

Why?   Because there is a letter that we get every year.  See, every year around the middle of February, there will be a warm day.  On that warm day someone will get the idea to start a garden for the school.  It does not happen everywhere, but it is pretty common.  See, they get the idea and the kids get excited about it.  A place is scouted out and then there is the letter.  We are raising funds for...

They think about all the gear they are going to need.  They think about things like seeds, fertilizer, tools, and gloves and they raise the money for it by having a bake sale or something.  The weather gets warmer, the seeds are planted and plants are grown.  Pictures are taken, nibbles are taken and then school lets out for the summer.  Ironically, this tradition originated because students were needed at home to tend the crops during the growing season, but now...

And so, with no one to tend the garden, it withers and dies.  The problem is that on one thinks about it for the whole summer and with football and baseball, etc. etc. no on thinks about it when school comes back until that first warm day when someone says, "Hey, we should start a garden for the kids...."  

The parent from the previous year is gone because their child has moved up to the next grade or to another school and they never thought to pass the baton.  So every year they start from square one.  Let me just say that this is not ALWAYS the case.  We are not saying that at all.  Still, it is fairly prevalent.  

So who am I?  Few teachers have the time or the energy to do what I do (I am sure I cannot do what they do either) because for them, it is an extra project.  School gardens are rarely funded, so people have to come up with funds sometimes from their own pocket.. Did I mention teachers are poor?

So, the primary issues are continuity and advocacy and we see this a lot with this kind of thing.  The school garden may look cool, but it is a very tricky thing.  It has the drawback of being most active when most students are not around, during the summer.  Secondly, it is hard to fit into a standard curriculum.  Aside from links to biology, it is hard to sell as a stand alone entity or as a teaching tool.
 It requires an outside actor and more often than not, when that is a parent, that parent is concerned with their child and not interested making it a full time job.  As far as the administration is concerned, projects such as this judged by their continuity and maintenance.  We encounter several gardens where people sell the garden idea and then have to do a presentation showing a space overgrown by weeds.

That is where I come in.  That is where you come in.  See,  I am that guy who makes sure the garden continues.  I am the one who composts.  I am the one who saves seeds.  I am the one who scours Pinterest for ideas.

In order for there to be gardens in every school...

In order for there to be computer coding classes... 

In order for there to be maker classes...

In order for there to be a lot of different classes there has to be someone who cares, as Dr. Suess put it, a whole awful lot.  So yes, I like to think of myself as The Lorax of sorts.

 The school gardens is just one of the projects we are putting together but the model we have created is geared towards creating multiple  sustainable projects.  We used this years gardens to grow next year's seeds and next years seeds are going to more schools and even to schools in Haiti.  We have recruited young people to work on a network to link them all together via social media so that ideas can be shared all over the country and possibly the world.
We have lots of work to do and we need your help.

If you truly care about these things, we are asking that you take a moment to contribute because if you do not, then these things will not survive.

Send us an email at thelifecooperative@gmail.com

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