Our Community Connections Journey

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Community connectedness, Cooking, Growing, Hands-on food literacy, Local food, Manitoba, Middle school (7-8), Outdoor learning, Story

Ecole Leila North Community School, Winnipeg, MB
Plant a Seed and See What Grows Foundation Grant, 2024

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 and 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:

Ecole Leila North Community School, Winnipeg, MB – Ashley Taylor1

Leila North Honey Bee Program

Our urban honey bee 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 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 and 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 programs, food literacy programs, and food-sharing initiatives.

Leila North Urban Chickens

Our school is home to 21 hens located in our school chicken coop. Students learn about caring for the hens, and small-scale farming production, and they see how food waste (beet tops, eggshells, imperfect produce, etc.) can be used as animal feed.

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 farmers 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 Dig In! Seed Grant 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 hot sauce using local ingredients, including locally grown hot peppers, onions, garlic and honey. Christine, a former chef and farmer from Peg City Fresh, walked students through the process of seed-saving using local squash. And finally, Louise May from Aurora Farm taught students about various farm products and showed them how to make felted soap using goat’s milk soap from her farm, felt, dried herbs and flowers.

We are beyond grateful to the Plant a Seed and Watch What Grows Foundation and F2CC for the funding we received and are excited to continue the learning and connections in 2025 and beyond.

If you want to follow along on our school journey here are our Instagram Pages:

Thank you!