Chelmsford Valley Composite School, Chelmsford, ON
Grant term 2020-2022
CVDCS is a K-12 school with 550 students located in Chelmsford, Ontario. We are a community school that services a wide, rural geographical area. We have many programs to support the well being of our students including an active Ecoschools team (EcoFlyers), a Construction SHSM, an Arts and Culture SHSM and cooperative learning opportunities.
We pride ourselves on creating a community within our walls and this project is an example of that K-12 community coming together. For our Farm to School Canada grant it was our goal to include many of our partners within our school and to include students from ages 4-18. Students engaged in starting seedlings indoors, caring for those indoor seedlings and transplanting the seedlings to newly constructed garden beds. Our Construction SHSM constructed a substantial raised bed garden which we will now be using each year to grow and use the food grown from these plants in our school. It is our hope that this September we will not only benefit from the food in the garden, but will also be in a position to collect seeds and teach students how to harvest their own seeds for planting the following year. Much of the expense was for construction materials and soil. Having this grant allowed us to cover the up front cost of these materials so that we could build an opportunity that has been a dream for many of our students and staff.
The next section tells the story, through photos, video, and written student testimonials of the experience that the Farm to School Canada grant gave us this school year. We look forward to the opportunities this will provide in the years to come. We believe that this is the type of grant that creates a sustainable opportunity for our school.