From left, Memorial School third-graders Mayaris Leon, Marshall Provencher and Alma Avendano hold lettuce freshly picked from the school's community garden.
Photo by Mike Riddick for Reminder Publishing
WEST SPRINGFIELD — The last week of the school year was an exciting one for Alma Avendano, a third-grader at Memorial School in West Springfield: Not only was summer vacation just around the corner, but she was also harvesting the lettuce she helped grow in the school's community garden.
“I'm really looking forward to harvesting lettuce. It's really tasty to eat fresh vegetables,” said the 9-year-old after harvesting lettuce with her class on June 10. “It's great to be able to grow vegetables and then be able to eat them a few months later.”
Julius Champagne, a third-grader at Memorial School, harvests lettuce from one of the flower beds in the school's community garden in early June.
Photo by Mike Riddick for Reminder Publishing
Later that week, she and the other 198 students at the elementary school had a salad for lunch made with 25 pounds of lettuce harvested from one of several gardens in front of the school. In addition to the salad tasting event, there is a roasted root vegetable tasting day for students and staff in the late fall.
“I've never seen students so enthusiastic about lettuce before. It's great to see them try something new and get more comfortable with it each year they participate,” said Catherine Metzger, a garden coordinator who works in the nutrition education program at the nonprofit Asentria Care Alliance.
The SNAP-Ed program provides nutrition education to youth in low-income neighborhoods throughout Hampden County, Metzger said. The program is funded by the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Services and a U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm to School grant.
Metzger and her colleagues help coordinate many community gardens in the area, but she said the one she's worked on the most and is most proud of is the school gardens in West Springfield. In addition to Memorial School, she also manages gardens at John Ashley Preschool, Mittineag School and West Springfield Middle School.
“The gardens at Memorial and Mittineag are the longest-running and most established at our schools,” said Metzger, who has been involved with the school gardens since 2021. “We have built our garden programs with great help and support from teachers, administrators, students, families and community members.”
Third-grader Girish Chhetri said he likes the garden program because the vegetables are fresher than those sold at the grocery store.
“It's highly nutritious and eating it is good for your health,” he said.
All Memorial and Mittineag students get hands-on in the fields at least three times a year, planting cool-weather crops like lettuce, kale, spinach, radishes and snap peas in late March or early April.
In June, we harvest spring crops and plant crops that will grow throughout the summer and be harvested by students in the fall, including potatoes, carrots, beets, corn, squash, beans, and more.
Fifth-grader Playas Bujel enjoys planting more than harvesting.
“I love planting because I can put seeds in the ground, watch them grow and eat them while they're still fresh,” the 11-year-old said.
“We were given this model of school garden planting, harvesting and tasting events by a nonprofit gardening organization called Backyard Growers in Gloucester, Massachusetts,” Metzger says. “This model makes the most of the brief window of overlap between the school year and the growing season, which is always a challenge for school gardens because the peak of the growing season is when students are not in school.”
Metzger said with the help of a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, Memorial School piloted a “Harvest of the Month” program this year, with a different local vegetable included and highlighted in school lunches each month.
In addition to the crops grown for harvest days and tasting events, there are a variety of crops that can be harvested whenever harvest time arrives.
“We encourage students, staff and families to visit the gardens frequently and pick from them,” Metzger said.
“Some of our favorite crops to harvest from our school gardens include snap peas, strawberries, mint, cucamelons, cherry tomatoes and sorrel,” she says. “Any leftover vegetables from the harvest event can be taken home by students and school staff.”
The garden program is not limited to school-wide planting and harvesting events. Metzger said that while student participation at each school is different and constantly evolving, examples include:
English language learners at WSMS grew plants under grow lights in their classrooms and built their own raised flower beds for plants this spring. Mittineag students used the gardens to learn reading and math. John Ashley classrooms chose a day each month to water their flower beds. Fifth graders at Memorial School designed and built their own compost bins.
