Enjoy the story of what our friends at Eco-Schools did this summer, and maybe get inspired to do some healthy cooking of your own!
By Fai Walker, Sustainability Coach, MS 126 Greenpoint Eco-Schools
During the summer, MS 126, a Greenpoint Eco-School, collaborated with the Beacon Summer program and Garden to Café, to offer a five week, ten day, thirty hour gardening and cooking program to middle school students.
MS 126’s outdoor classroom/organic garden has eleven raised beds filled with tomatoes, eggplant, onions, kale, collards, okra, and basil, as well as eight pocket planters overflowing with herbs. Once harvested, these vegetables became ingredients in dishes that the students prepared with the master chef, George Edwards, and served in the cafeteria.
One month later, swiping through the photos on an iPad, a few students look back fondly on their experience. “The best part was mixing the soil. It was fun opening big bags of topsoil and throwing it around on the tarp, with different types of soil,” recalls Nicole Julia, an 8th grader at MS 126. Nyasia Perez disagrees. “It was finding critters. THAT was the best. We found caterpillars, worms, and bugs. I liked the bees and worms best, although I did name the caterpillar ‘Guy’. I think Nicole found the caterpillar.”
Abigail Witowski beams, “I liked the cooking the best. I don’t really cook. I can make toast. My mom and dad cook at home. So for me the cooking was the best! I told my mother what we cooked but they still won’t let me cook.” Nicole contributes, “I cook already. I cook rice and beans, mac and cheese, pasta…but I don’t cook like the things we made this summer.” Nyasia laughs when she sees a picture of herself in a hairnet and plastic gloves.
It’s the day of the Sampling Table event. Other students attending the summer program are offered Dixie cup-sized sample of dishes the girls prepared. There is a salad with cilantro dressing, kale, collards, and tomatoes; honey roasted eggplant with onions, tomatoes and basil; spicy collards and kale; and roasted peaches with honey, cinnamon, and ginger. Students in the cafeteria are invited to the sampling table to learn about the ingredients in the dishes and its nutritional value, and receive a sample. Then they rate the dish on taste, appearance, texture and smell. They liked the honey cinnamon peaches the best, even though the peaches didn’t come from our garden. The spicy collards and kale came in second.
Kimberly Daugherty is the last to flip though the photos. She immediately sees herself and smiles, “That’s me having fun.” Kimberly is an former Eco-Schools Afterschool Green STEM Club member; she and other team members helped design the outdoor classroom/garden. “I told my mom about the peaches and now we cook them at home, but with maple syrup, not honey. I would like to do the program again next summer.”
And with any luck, we will. “If the program were offered during the school year”, says Abigail, “I think students would be interested. Not after school, but during the day.” According to Chaunte Gardener, program director for Beacon Summer program, “The girls loved it. It was a big hit!”