Sakatcheway Anishinabe Elementary School, Grassy Narrows, ON
Grant term, 2023-2024
I started at the school in October 2022 as the Mental Health Counselor. I have a lengthy background in childcare. I went out on the school property and, along with some unused and broken chicken coops, a 48’ by 24’ greenhouse was tucked away and fenced in on the back area of the school and filled with groundskeeping tools so I said to the powers that be that I wanted to start a greenhouse.
A school staff had an idea to do an after-school program and have students build planter boxes. Wood was ordered and the greenhouse was cleaned out. 10 planters were built, graded, and loaded with sticks and soil. Each class was assigned a planter and all started seedlings.
In the first year, the greenhouse had to be watered by hand. Over the summer I was the only one to water the greenhouse despite having other staff on site and we had a massive grasshopper problem. Plants in the greenhouse died three times but like a good Dr. Frankenstein, they were resurrected. Three harvests happened over the summer. When staff came back after the summer there were complaints as they expected the greenhouse to be full of produce.
After prepping the greenhouse for winter, I applied for and received a Dig In! Seed Grant. With the funding, I set to locating heating, lighting, and watering systems. Ordering these items became an issue that was eventually overcome and we received the items in May of 2024. We installed the watering system today (June 2024) and will soon be doing our first trial!
