Students at Peter Skene Ogden Secondary School are enjoying experiencing something new at school while helping out their community at the same time.
This year, the students are maintaining one of the beds in the community garden near the 100 Mile House Elementary, and they expect to be going a few more times.
The garden is maintained by teacher sponsors, Ray Kline and Tai St. Pierre, who weed and water it every Thursday after school, mainly with the Justice Club. However, on the first day, they also took their classes to help weed the garden and prepare the soil for planting.
Student Nicole Hollander said it was fun to work on the garden and do something different. “It was nice to do something that actually helps out the community.”
Kline said they hope to be able to maintain the garden and provide vegetables such as carrots and beets for the community. They also have flowers, and “a little herb garden in there they’re going to get going.
“Volunteers and then anyone in the community can come in and pick the vegetables and use them,” he said.
“So it’s just volunteers come in and look after everything - grow food for the community.”
Not only does the garden benefit the community, but it also provides students with valuable opportunities to learn new things and experience being part of the community.
“We think it’s good to get the students involved in the community, have them care about things,” Kline said.
St. Pierre said having the students work on the garden was great for environmental education in general and, “getting kids learning about the soil and the land that they live on, how to maintain it, and how to interact with it in a healthy and beneficial way.”
In the end, students enjoyed both the experience and being able to help out their community with Hollander saying, “I think it would be nice to work on the gardens again in the future because I like helping out something that benefits everybody.”