Ottawa Technical Secondary School, Ottawa, ON
Grant term 2022-2024
Our Farm to Cafeteria program has been a resounding success and we are so grateful for the support. Ottawa Technical Secondary School serves a diverse student population, many of whom live with food insecurity and in living situations that don’t enable a connection to the land and to gardening and food cultivation.
Thanks to the Farm to School Canada grant, more than 100 students had an opportunity to grow food and prepare nutritious meals with produce grown through our Green Industries program, our greenhouse, and our planter boxes that are placed around our property. This food was used to provide frequent free, nutritious meals to students in need through our in-house cafeteria program run by our culinary arts program. Our program features food grown by students, prepared by students, and eaten by students.
However, an unintended impact was improved literacy skills and a fostered love of reading by students who had been struggling. For example, when the grow towers arrived that we purchased with financial support from Farm to Cafeteria Canada, we had several students who were super eager to get the set-up and to start growing with them. These students engaged in research about how best to use the grow towers and poured over the instruction guide to learn how to get the towers up and running. When the time came to install the towers, the teacher in charge struggled. One of the students had been working really hard to elevate his reading skills including engaging in reading remediation programs. This student took charge of the grow tower setup by reading through the instructions, summarizing the steps to be taken, and guiding the teacher, all of which require high-level literacy and communication skills.
Once the towers were set up, the students continued their research and experimented with the towers until the fruits of their labour began to sprout. They were proud that they did all of this themselves and that the reading that was once a barrier became an empowering tool for them, all inspired by the Farm to Cafeteria program.
