Grimm family donates $400,000 for school 'edible schoolyard'
| Wednesday, May 26 2010 06:00 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, May 26 2010 10:21 PM
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Photo courtesy of Edible Schoolyard
The Grimm Family Foundation donated $400,000 to build, staff and maintain a garden and kitchen at Buena Vista Elementary School modeled after Edible Schoolyard. Students in the picture here work in the kitchen at a Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley.
The students will put on their boots and gloves. They'll feed the chickens, grow fruit and vegetables, and maintain the compost and worm farm.
When the fruit and veggies are ready, students will take them to a "kitchen classroom" where they will learn to prepare meals.
And the whole time, they'll be learning.
That's what officials from Grimm Family Foundation and the Panama-Buena Vista School District expect to see starting Fall 2011.
Barbara Grimm-Marshall of Grimmway Farms on Tuesday proposed to build, staff and fund a one-acre garden for Buena Vista Elementary School. The foundation vowed to give $400,000 a year to cover costs.
It will be modeled after the Edible Schoolyard program in Berkeley that has spread throughout the country. Once established, it could be the first such program in Kern County, officials said.
"What a perfect program to bring to Bakersfield in the heart of the agriculture community -- the fruit and vegetable basket of the world," Grimm-Marshall told the school board Tuesday. "It's a perfect opportunity to give back to the community."
The school board and district officials graciously accepted.
"With budget cuts and service cuts ...," Superintendent Kip Hearron said, stopping himself as he got emotional. "It's just a great opportunity for us."
The garden and kitchen will be built across the street from the school on Panama Lane and Buena Vista Road, on land owned by the Grimms.
The program will be curriculum-focused and hands-on, officials said. Students during class will tend the garden with a greenhouse, prepare food and maintain the kitchen.
"From start to finish, they'll learn and have a sense of accomplishment," Grimm said.
Officials hope that once the garden and kitchen are established, the program will be recognized as an Edible Schoolyard affiliate. That program kicked off nearly 15 years ago and has seen sites spring up in Brooklyn and New Orleans, many of them at charter schools. The program has been featured in USA Today, among other publications.
Grimm-Marshall and district officials in recent weeks visited the Berkeley site, and the district formed a committee to discuss logistics.
Marsha Guerrero, director of Edible Schoolyard, said she was impressed with the district's visit and how excited officials were about the program.
Although there is not yet research to show how beneficial the garden program has been for students, anecdotally, she said, students who in the past have not behaved or been focused in class make a change for the better.
"It really opens them up in a classroom in a different way," she said. "The hands-on learning is very useful."
Schools across the country, including here in Bakersfield, have created educational gardens on campuses, but few integrate curriculum like Edible Schoolyard does on a large scale.
Construction of the kitchen will begin in October, and garden construction will start in January 2011. Officials hope the program will be up and running by the start of the school year in 2011.
Six staff members, including program coordinator and current Bakersfield High School math teacher Kristen Barnes, will head the operation. They will be paid by Grimmway.
Laura Leppke, a fourth-grade teacher at Buena Vista, said when staff members were told of the program "the room just lit up."
Leppke is teaching about flowers and pollination in class. To be able to actually touch and smell what you're studying, she said, will take students to a different level of understanding.
For more information on Edible Schoolyard, go to www.edibleschoolyard.org.
