Redmond School Gardens Update

Thanks to last summer’s successful fundraising campaign, we’ve been working hard to support school garden efforts in Redmond and we have exciting updates to share!

Eagle Scout Garden Revitalization Project at John Tuck Elementary School

A week before school closures in March 2020, we were meeting with administrators and staff at John Tuck School in Redmond to kick off garden education work. When schools remained closed, we switched gears and used the time to provide irrigation technical assistance and worked throughout spring to upgrade the existing system to in-bed drip irrigation. At the end of the school year, we finally worked in-person with kindergarteners excited about weeding and spreading compost.

So when local high school student Jace Bracelin approached us about if we saw a need for his Eagle Scout project needs, we connected him to the John Tuck Elementary School Garden! Tucked in a small courtyard behind the school, it was one of many school gardens that weren’t utilized during COVID school closures and was in need of some revitalization. Jace rallied his scout troop and their families to pitch in a full day of weeding, repairing and staining picnic tables, pruning, laying down weed barrier and spreading mulch.

Garden Educator Network Workshop in Redmond

Our first in-person garden educator network event was held last October in Redmond. Teachers from Redmond, Prineville, Bend and Sisters joined us to learn about the 4 principles of soil health and how that looks in a school garden setting. After the learning part, we walked over to the StepUp School garden, where we got hands-on practice putting those principles to work by amending their garden beds with manure. Teachers left with funds for soil amendments for their own garden, a small stipend, and a half dozen native pollinator plants.

Garden Grants at Work in Redmond

Our annual garden grant program saw the most applications ever received, and 25% of those were from Redmond, including schools new to our garden network. Here’s a quick outline of their garden project plans:

• Tumalo Community School revitalized their outdoor school garden last year when students returned to in person learning in 2021. This year, they are excited to fix up the existing greenhouse to better serve all the students who have been so excited about garden club this past year,
• Tom McCall School’s 4th grade class will purchase indoor classroom seed starting supplies to learn about the importance of pollinator plants by starting them in their classroom, then gifting them at the end of the school year to a nearby assisted living facility.
• StepUp is focusing efforts this year to make their large greenhouse more usable by bringing power out to the greenhouse, replacing the older plastic cover, and more improvements to kick off their seed starting program with students. 
• Terrebonne Community School is utilizing a natural corner of their outdoor school grounds to begin designing a new outdoor classroom space involving native, pollinator, and edible plants.
• MA Lynch School, with the help of our FoodCorps Service Member and an emerging Garden Committee, will be implementing a garden development plan to improve an outdoor garden classroom. Continue reading for a deeper look into all the work she is doing at Lynch this year.

FoodCorps Service Member at MA Lynch

Adrienne, our FoodCorps Service Member, has been busy at M.A. Lynch Elementary school! Since early in the school year, she has been teaching hands-on lessons to the Kinder, 4th, and 5th graders about nutrition, gardening, and everything food related. After recently receiving a Garden Grant from The Environmental Center, she has been working to organize a garden committee that will make a vision for upcoming development, support garden-based education, and create long-term plans for maintenance. In addition to garden and classroom activities, Adrienne has been working with the school and district community to pilot a weekly school-wide fruit and veggie taste-test, funded by the federal Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. Every week, she appears on what the kids consider the “big screen” (a school-wide morning gathering on zoom) to spotlight the produce that will be served, then sends home information to families about the fruit or vegetable. This pilot was such a success that she is now serving a healthy snack twice per week.

Virtual Family Cooking Night

Recently, she hosted the first virtual cooking night with M.A. Lynch families, where parents and their kids got to cook spring rolls together! Families that signed up received bags full of fresh ingredients, with enough food to feed the whole family. These 13 families logged onto zoom on a Wednesday night after school. The session started with a hand and veggie washing demonstration by their SNAP educator, Kaitlin Greene from OSU Nutrition Extension. Afterwards, Adrienne went over knife safety and cutting techniques, offering some easy alternatives for the kinders to help out if they were not ready to use a knife. They went through a few vegetables together – carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, cilantro, and avocado. Along the way, the kids learned fun and nutrition facts about these foods, while adults learned some substitutions that they can use in the future. They finally made a delicious sauce together, wrapped up the veggies in rice paper, and tasted the spring rolls. YUM! Families even had leftover spring roll wrappers to use to make the recipe again. 

Adrienne, her students, and their families had so much fun during this cooking class that she plans to host a couple more through the end of the school year. This and the garden developments will make for an exciting Spring at M.A. Lynch.