Ecole Leila North Community School, Winnipeg, MB
Grant term, 2024-2025
Ecole Leila North Community School is part of the Seven Oaks School Division on Treaty 1 Territory, in the North End of Winnipeg, MB. We teach approximately 400 middle years students in both grade-level and multiage classrooms.
Our Food and Nutrition Programs go above and beyond to nurture positive food relationships, teach students about sustainable food education, reducing food waste, the importance of knowing where your food comes from, and building relationships with the people who make our food system possible.
Our school has a number of hands-on community learning projects and connections to providing holistic environmental education opportunities:
- Leila North Honeybee Program: Our urban honeybee program makes it possible for students to have hands-on learning experiences with our rooftop hives. Students learn about beehive care, the importance of pollinators, honey production, and ways we can help care for our local pollinators.
- Leila North Urban Chickens: Our school is home to 21 hens located in our school chicken coop. Students learn about caring for the hens, small-scale farming production, and they see how food waste (beet tops, eggshells, imperfect produce, etc.) can be used as animal feed.
- Leila North School Gardens: Our school has gardens located on the school grounds and a garden space we share with the local fire station. Students learn about the life cycle of food and pollinator plants, from starting seeds, to germination, to growth, harvesting and seed saving. The resources provided by these garden spaces are shared throughout the school in multiple classroom settings, including art program, food literacy program and food sharing initiatives.
- Local Partnership with Fireweed Food Co-op (FFC): Since 2021, our school has connected with Fireweed Food Co-op on various projects to connect with local farmers, including farm tours, food waste upcycling, trying new local foods, and more. The FFC is a cooperative of small-scale farmer and supporters of local food systems. They work with 45 + local farmers and a wide variety of chefs, community partners and other food system stakeholders.
The F2CC has allowed us the opportunity to further connect with Fireweed Food Co-op and their network and provide multiple hands-on learning experiences for students. We have hosted three workshops for over 50 students, one cooking class with a local chef and two workshops with farmers and farm products.
Students connected with Chef Max, a local chef who taught students how to make spice blends and roast a variety of root vegetables and squash using local ingredients. Julie, from Bloom Bakery and Mill, walked students through the process of milling different grains grown on her farm and how to make shortbread cookies. And finally, Chad Weins from Slow River Gardens taught students about various farming methods, the important role fertilizers play and showed them how to repot herbs.
We are beyond grateful to F2CC for the funding we received and excited to continue our learning and connections in 2025-2026 and beyond.
