Drawing by Quinton Lewis

Orca Giving Garden

          The Giving Garden is a second year project started in the Orca Children’s Garden in 2005.  Through a partnership with Lettuce Link, an organization that encourages gardeners to donate their bumper crop to food banks, we have set aside a garden plot to grow produce for a local food bank.  Lettuce Link donated the seeds, while Phi Ho’s third grade class and Ms. Tanisha’s second grade class have sown seeds, transplanted starts, weeded and harvested the bed.  The students also have also helped to wash and pack the produce (bok choi, radishes, lettuce, beets, arugula…) with Parent Liaisons from these classes taking the veggies to the food bank at the Operational Emergency Center. 

baby bok choi is delicious and nutritious

So far this school year we have harvested and donated approximately 87 lbs of produce worth over $200, and that’s just fall and springs crops!  In addition, we have donated about $300 worth of tomato, basil, and other veggie starts that were leftover from the plant sale, so food bank patrons will also be able to grow their own produce. 

beautiful heads of lettuce to give away

            To cap off the year of learning about gardening, nutrition, and helping others, the student gardener’s that worked in the Giving Garden this year welcomed a visitor, Dian Ferguson, Executive Director of the Operational Emergency Center.  She came to speak to the two classes about the food bank, what it does, who it serves, and to answer any questions the kids had about where their hard earned produce went when donated. 

            These student gardeners have also spent some time reflecting about their project writing poems and drawing pictures.  I wish I could share all the poems and pictures, but there just isn’t enough space in this one article!  Here are a just a few of the wonderful drawings and poems written about the Giving Garden:

drawing by Dylan Butt

The Giving Garden

By Kailas Cuerpo (Room 9)

The Giving Garden is lots of fun,

The Giving Garden, there’s more than one,

You grow the food and give it away,

You have to work on it everyday.

Drawing by Jesse Richman

 

Good Foods

By Imara Felsburg (Room 3)

Vegetables are good, fruits are yummy

And they’re both good for your tummy.

Carrots are sweet, some apples are sour.

Most fruit and vegetables will give you power!!!

 

Drawing by Nick Lewis

  

Giving

By Layton Carroll-Novack (Room 9)

Giving, it is not a sport,

Giving is an opportunity,

It helps people who do not have food,

People love to give and be given to,

Giving is nice.

 

            If you are interested in starting your own Giving Garden, visit the Lettuce Link web page at http://www.fremontpublic.org/client/food.html#LettuceLink You can get information on nutritious vegetable gardening, as well as information on local food banks, where they are located and what their donating hours are.