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Garlic helps grow food production education in the Shuswap

Grindrod Garlic Festival presented $500 grants to 2 schools
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Grindrod Garlic Festival Society member Ian Richardson, far right, presents a $500 cheque to Silver Creek Elementary teacher Noah Ralston for his Grade 6-8 Explorations course, with North Canoe also a recipient of the grant that supports food production education.

Garlic grants are helping spice things up at two elementary schools in K̓wsaltktnéws ne Secwepemcúl’ecw School District 83.

The Grindrod Garllic Festival Society annually presents grants up to $500 to support food and agriculture education, and this year's recipients were Silver Creek and North Canoe Elementary schools. 

District schools can apply every year, and Siver Creek's winning proposal was to buy a stainless steel, 12-tray food dehydrator to preserve food as part of the school's Grade 6-8 Explorations course. In a Jan. 15 media release, teacher Noah Ralston explained that the course involves growing food in raised beds, as well as cooking, preserving and eating that and other local foods. 

"We try to source food locally or from the wild and cook things like salmon, apples, elk and more," he said. "We would like to add teaching students how to dehydrate food. We will do fruits like local apples and perhaps some wild meat to make jerky."

By incorporating a dehydrator into the program, it will allow students to preserve excess or donated food and create healthy snacks for the school's food program while also teaching valuable life skills.

"Many families in the Silver Creek community grow or hunt their own food," Ralston noted. "We try to augment this by incorporating skills and techniques school wide."

The grant for North Canoe will help with the school's four raised garden beds that the Grade 3/4 and 4/5 classes have been hard at work cleaning and weeding. The funds will be used to buy materials like soil and plants, and to add two more beds so all students will have their own to look after.

The school's goals get students to connect to the joy of growing plants, harvesting the crops and having a long table lunch before school ends, recognizing the difference between locally raised and imported produce, and develop respect for the land.

Six applications for the grant were received from area schools and the Garlic Festival Society is hoping to partner with Valley First Credit Union to have them fund at least one more, as they have in past years. 



About the Author: Heather Black

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