Veazie Community School Garden

Category

Vegetable and herb Garden, Flowers and ornamentals, Greenhouse or hoop house, Composting, Grow lab(s) or tower inside

When was your garden project started?
We started our garden in the summer of 2016

What type of facility hosts your garden?
Our garden is on school grounds

What programs does your garden project include?
After School Garden Club, Summer Learning in the Garden Activities, Farm to table program growing produce for the cafeteria, connections through plant “adoptions” to the community and specifically to the Graham Senior Center and Hydroponic Systems..

Does your garden have a paid coordinator?
No

Who volunteers in your garden?
Nicole Richard, Heather Holmes, Tara Frazier and our custodial staff.

How is your garden project funded?
Our garden is funded through donations, grants, and supplemented through the school budget when possible.

What community connections do you have?
We have strong connections with families throughout the community. We have also built lasting connections with the Senior Center in town.

Who tends the garden when school’s out?
Nicole Richard, Heather Holmes, Tara Frazier, custodial staff and on occasion local VCS staff.

What are your future goals?
Our future goals for the garden are to create a love of the outdoors for the children of Veazie as well as a connection to the land and to promote healthy eating by growing the produce that goes into the cafeteria lunch program. We are working to reintroduce a hydroponics program, which will extend our growing season throughout the winter months and teach an understanding of the hydroponics system. A plant adoption where students propagate house plants and/or plants and prepare seedlings, offering them to the community for a donation to help fund our garden expenses and to expand our flower garden to encourage more pollinators.

What is your most significant need?
Our most significant need at this time is funding for the people who tend the garden and our goal would be that we could send our Garden Caretakers, Nikki Richard and Heather Holmes to more training around the use of school gardens and agriculture.