Introduction to the Program

As the weather is warming and spring is coming into full bloom, the garden at Emery Collegiate Institute is also beginning to take off. The Grow to Learn Urban Agriculture project run by the non-profit organization, PACT, partnered with the TDSB to create a large community food garden at Emery last year.  This is one of six school yard gardens the G2L Urban Agriculture project is running in Toronto.

The garden in April

This year Emery will see the addition of a large pollinator garden and outdoor classroom adjacent to the existing farm. The garden offers a wide range of benefits to the school and the community at large. The project, which aims to raise environmental and community awareness in youth, grows a huge variety of vegetables from spring to fall and donates them to the local food bank. Students will gain important skills volunteering in the garden’s lunch and after school program, run by a PACT Urban Agriculture Leader and can complete their required community service hours. The skills and experience volunteers gain while working in the garden will be beneficial to their future job and post-secondary education applications.  The program also offers the possibility of summer employment to a few hardworking students. 

 OISE interns Wendy and Ben seed beets with student volunteers during the Lunch Gardening Program. The lunch and after school gardening programs run on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

The garden acts as an educational space for both students and teachers. Teachers are welcome to teach in this living classroom and to have classes contribute work to growing the organic vegetables. There is a multitude of ways in which the curriculum can interact with the garden. PACT also incorporates student teacher interns from OISE and Ryerson to help with the project.

Composting and maintaining healthy soil will be a large focus of the garden.  Volunteers have a chance to be directly involved in creating and maintaining a local food system and will take part in the full production and consumption cycle including planting, growing, harvesting, eating and composting. The organically grown produce will be donated to the local food bank in the summer and volunteers can feel empowered knowing they are helping others in need in their community.
  
The garden puts youth directly in touch with their food and how it is grown and they will learn the importance of being good stewards of their environment. The Emery CI garden is a safe space for all students and community members to share knowledge, learn essential food growing skills, eat healthy, try something new, and be engaged in creating their local food system. Free food events offering the vegetables grown in the garden will take place in September where the fruits of all of the volunteers’ labour will be enjoyed. 

Emery houses a Collegiate, Adult Learning Centre, and Child Daycare Centre, all of which contribute to the uniqueness and diversity of the largest schoolyard garden in the GTA. It is definitely a space to be proud of and this year we aim to make the garden thrive with life and diversity!

Stay tuned to our blog to keep up to date on how the garden grows and changes over the course of the growing season! 

--Bonnie