A GARDEN IN EVERY SCHOOL IN FAIRFIELD COUNTY?!!
On January 8, I travelled to Princeton, NJ with farmer Annie Farrell to meet the moms of the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative. Every school in Princeton has an edible garden on site. We spent four very intense hours with Fran McManus, Diane Landis, Dorothy Mullen and Karla Cook. They took us through their process - from addressing the concerns of school administrators, to finding garden sites, to forming partnerships with local businesses and foundations for resources and funding. They have done an incredible job of creating and implementing curriculum for every grade level and in every subject area. Not only have they accomplished all this in a few short years, they've also had Princeton University students research the impact of the gardens with very positive results!
Here's a link to a terrific document they've published:
http://www.prs.k12.nj.us/GardenCoop/GardenCoopGuideNov07.pdf
The Fairfood Edible Schoolyard Initiative is calling all would-be gardeners. Plans are in the works to bring the Princeton moms here for a SCHOOL GARDENS WORKSHOP in March. We'd like to invite teachers, administrators, school staff, parents, students and community members from all over the county to the workshop. We're compiling a database of interested people from every district. If you or someone you know would like to be on the workshop invitation list, please send us this important data: Name, email, phone, school district, school name and position (are you a teacher, administrator, school staff, parent, student, business person, volunteer, foundation, etc) Send info to: Lauren@a-ray.tv