Project Grow

One program run out of Border Valley School is the Girls Time Out program. It has been running for the past 10 years. It is made up of approximately 45 girls from grades 5-8. Our group is very passionate about sustainable development and supporting our community. A positive outcome of this has been a greater concern for taking care of our planet and what that means for their community. Currently, the group is looking at ways to get a school compost bin and bird feeders to add to the sustainable development projects at school.
The girls would love to be able to learn more about gardening and be able to give back to our community. The group’s vision for our school would be to have a green house on our property in order to grow organic vegetables and flowers for our community. The vegetables would be given to Winkler and District food cupboard (for them to distribute among their clients), The Bunker (a local youth drop in center who have many families on a tight budget), and Genesis House (the local woman’s shelter) as well as families from our school who could use fresh vegetables.
During the first year, this project would be run by the Girls Time Out group. The leaders would help in deciding which vegetables to grow, and create a list of needed supplies; they would also help create a chore calendar so that all of the girls have a chance to work in the green house. The girls would harvest and deliver the produce to the organizations that we have listed above.

Update (February 9, 2011)

Currently we are in the process of applying for other grant to help us reach the goal of a green house on the school property. A green house design has been chosen and a break down of related costs has been made. The girls have been discussing the greenhouse and have started to collect planting containers to use. We plan on planting our first plants in the early spring and harvest them in September.

Update (January 19, 2012)

Our project Grow was a great success. The students were active all summer taking care of the weeds in the garden and we harvested the veggies . We had enough veggies to donate to one organization. Of the 3 that we had thought about the girls decided to bring them to a woman's shelter called "Genesis House". I have attached pictures of the girls harvesting carrots and them delivering the veggies to the home.