Garden creates outdoor classroom

The excitement from Whitefish Middle

School students as they worked in the garden last week was

palpable. A few announced their excitment and some eagerly ate

carrots after pulling them from the soil.

About 300 students spent a couple days

harvesting vegetables from the Whitefish Lions Club Farm-to-School

garden. Students picked squash, zucchini and cucumbers. They pulled

carrots and dug beats and potatoes.

The Lions Club started the garden last

summer and donated the fresh vegetables to local school

cafeterias.

“We wanted to create a legacy project,”

said Kim Taylor, president of the Lions Club. “Farm-to-School fits

in with our mission as well. We wanted something that was community

service, but also provided better nutrition for the students and

taught them where their food comes from.”

In the fall seventh and eighth grade

students help harvest at the garden as part of a service-learning

experience.

Principal Kerry Drown said the garden

work is one of a number of ways students volunteer in the

community. Students look for ways they can help, plan the activity

and then carry it out.

“It’s about developing more civic-mined

adults,” he said.

The garden work has an education base

as well, he noted.

“This is like an outdoor classroom,”

Drown said. “They learn a lot of things in a short amount of time —

like where that potato came from.”

Last year’s garden yielded about 800

pounds of squash and zucchini and 1,000 pounds of potatoes. Some

was frozen and continued to be used in lunches into March of this

year.

Lions Club members grow the garden over

the summer with volunteer labor. A number of individuals and

businesses also contributed to the garden.