Our School and Learning Garden Programs
School Gardens
Our primary program is to support school gardens to be not only productive sites for food production but also as valuable learning places for children to actively engage in gardening and the environment and to be available to the community.
Groundbreakers currently supports gardens at almost all of the public schools in Smithers and Telkwa. Our organization provides coordinating services, runs lunch hour Garden Clubs, and delivers garden lessons in planting and harvesting.
A critical part of the School Garden program is Groundbreakers hiring a summer student to water and tend to gardens over the summer break in order to have them viable for learning and harvesting in the fall.
Learning Gardens
Our Learning Gardens program began with Groundbreakers producing a northern BC food security and gardening educational kit titled Kids Dig Food: Know it, Sow it, Grow it, Eat it! to assist in mentoring teachers in the learning potential of gardens and the production of food. Now the Learning Gardens Program is integrated in elementary school gardens across our community, thanks to key funders like the B.C. Grow Local Program and Wetzink’wa Community Forest Corporation.
The Learning Gardens Program by Groundbreakers aims to cultivate local food appreciation and curiosity in elementary students and their families. It achieves this by providing hands-on workshops focused on understanding food origins, connecting with local agriculture and producers, gardening and soil science, and the process of harvesting and cooking food grown in school gardens and by local producers. The program directly exposes students to local food and knowledge through experiential learning.
Groundbreakers June Salad Days and fall Harvest Soup days are regular highlights of the outcomes of the school gardens and the learning workshops.
