About 25 people got their hands dirty during a late afternoon session behind Squamish Elementary School last week for a project that aims to educate and inspire entrepreneurial youngsters.
The group, ranging in age from five to 50, assembled on April 10 to build six raised garden beds in which to grow food - the result of a unique partnership of Squamish Rotary, the Squamish Climate Action Network (CAN), the Squamish Youth Resource Centre and the Howe Sound Secondary School (HSSS) CAN and Interact (Rotary) clubs.
Once they're planted, the beds will be tended and watered BY the Squamish Elementary kindergarten students and teens from the Squamish Youth Resource Centre (SYRC), said Linda Kelly-Smith, a Squamish Elementary School teacher who's also a member of Squamish CAN.
Squamish Rotary is providing materials and labour for the project; Squamish CAN is supplying seeds, plants and know-how; and the HSSS student groups are chipping in with labour and mentoring with the younger kids, she said.
Produce from three of the beds will be harvested and sold in the fall by teens at the Squamish Farmers' Market as part of an SYRC program called GROW (Gardening, Organics, Recycling, Worms), said Madeleine Somerville, co-ordinator of the three-year-old project.
The project operated for the past two years using space at the Rotary Community Garden, Somerville said. The new location will allow participants to walk over from the centre to care for the garden boxes, she said.
"The project's aim isn't so much to make money as it is to teach them about where their food comes from and get them involved in that process," Somerville said.
Youngsters who are into their third year of the GROW project will learn mentoring and leadership skills as they help incoming participants learn the ropes, she said.
"We're really lucky to partner with Rotary on this," she added. "Not that many people know about the youth centre, but having the kids out selling the produce gets the kids involved with the wider community."
