Dawn Grantham serves as a Companion in Education advertising advisor at Columbus State School.
Discover: South Columbus Elementary School (SCES), in Columbus, Georgia was selected to participate in Georgia Organic’s Farm to School Grant initiative owing to Dr. Dawn Jenkins and its inventive organization of its schoolyard with minimal resources available outside. Specifically, two Georgia Organic grants offered this year require participating schools partner with a local farmer in planting, growing, harvesting, selling or trading produce produced on campus and its sale or trading on the open market. This required SCES as one of two colleges selected at random from Columbus schools within its geographic boundaries – thus selecting two Georgia Organics Georgia Organics’s Farm to School Grant was given out among two Georgia schools selected at SCES from Columbus Georgia for participation based solely due its innovative efforts organized schoolyard design!
“No doubt about it: even small groups of thoughtful, committed residents can change the world; in fact, that has always been true.” – Margaret Mead of Anthropology fame was awarded with Planetary Citizen of the Year Award in 1978.
At first we met in the college library. Seating ourselves comfortably on child-friendly chairs that only slightly reduced back support, sitting around child-friendly tables where bent knees nudged underside or rested against edge; talking, deliberating and brainstorming occurred between meetings before scheduling meetings to start on specific dates and times.
Here, we gathered: local farmers, the assistant principal and four classroom lecturers of our school’s campus, one supportive parent from homeschool groupings and nutritionist from school district office nutritionist, grant advisors from grants programs in local extensions agents’ office along with myself – we formed Eagles Go Green! (EGG!) garden-to-market committee.
From November 2021 through May 2022, for an hour each month from November to May we emphasized hands-on opportunities for schoolchildren with farmers. In our conferences we agreed on surveying faculty students and staff members as we traveled down our chosen course; and reserved dates to dig up crops, plant seeds, harvest crops, play games with them all, have fun and celebrate together with family.
Promoting our school, we hosted an exciting kickoff event, video productions, scheduled photographers and created a t-shirt design as promotional features. Since we valued great arts so highly, fulfilling capabilities were provided through blending an art work problem together into an artwork problem solution. Through meeting, talking and brainstorming we quickly forgot that cultivating school yards can be hard work!
We surrendered, yet leant in. Each participant yielded to and accepted the flow and flow of a collaborative process, trusting its direction. As soon as we started work on solving our school-to-market challenge or managing 313 college students – all initial reservations dissolved away.
Some amazing feats happened. Thanks to funding from a grant, farmers were able to plant an orchard of fruit trees on campus that had long been on its need list; working alongside these farmers, college students started discussing careers in agriculture as they conversed about gardening instructions given directly from farmers themselves.
Assistant Principal Vicci Griffin noted the students’ enthusiasm and eagerness to participate, noting how EGG! extended beyond four walls of classroom allowing a natural gradual launch of learning; Principal Dawn Jenkins agreed, noting how EGG! brought her school students closer together towards real world education.
What was most evident during our garden-to-market experience was an overwhelming sense of awe among both students and adults, who found themselves immersed in an experience full of amazement and learning. Greens can be so captivating when seen for the first time: their color, type, aroma, form and texture were truly marvellous to experience for ourselves all over again!
On Friday, May 13th 2022 at South Columbus Elementary School was an EGG! Market Day/Topic Day.
Jenna Mobley, photographer and Georgia Organics contributor, took photos that captured all the smiling faces, hard working efforts and generous spirits found within market experiences through her lens.
Dew Stage Farms was pleased to collaborate with EGG!, led by Jakira Palmer (college paraprofessional) as part of a market exhibit of produce from both their farm and school’s backyard and garden, all sold at attractive market pricing for student profit over their financial goal of $200.00.
Alexandra Countryman provided art lessons throughout the sidewalk event; reminding school college students about Alma Thomas, an established artist in Muscogee County School District’s nutritionist Jada Bone fitted school college students into smocks while UGA Extension Agent Ashley Brantley and Master Gardener Volunteer Shelia Brown helped direct paint strokes on two neighborhood canvases; plus Muscogee County School District Content Material Specialist Dr. McCullough provided district support.
Principal Jenkins and fifth grade coach Patrice Blassingame provided patrons, artists, spectators and athletes a smooth journey across campus to their venues of event on time and within proper locations.
Amanda Joiner, Patrice Blassingame and Deidre Howell from SCES staff’s EGG! Committee provided visible support from beginning to end in this garden-to-market challenge for Varsity Garden to Market teams.
At EGG! Market Day, Kimberly Della Donna and Kimberly Koogler of Georgia Organics’ Farm to School program were on hand to celebrate with farmers both young and experienced alike.
Organizing South Columbus Elementary School’s student garden-to-market experience EGG! was simple – creating an agenda was all we had to do and keeping everyone on schedule for speaking parts. We recognize the success of any yard requires effort, time and dedication from us all; from finding suitable equipment and supplies for their implementation through developing strategies suited for success to making sure we remain committed. But, more challenging still – and out of anyone’s direct control – was creating synergy when everyone understood and acknowledged the enormity of our problem. Once more, we learned to perceive each step along our strategy together as we created expectations, relied upon existing friends’ expertise, and took on one difficult problem together.
What an extraordinary feat all this feat represents!
