The Next Garden of Eden!

THE NEXT GARDEN OF EDEN!


There are only a few times in your life when you can truly say - without one scintilla of hyperbole - that THE FUTURE IS HERE. One of those times is NOW! Thanks to our sponsors and supporters, the Langley School District Foundation is now able to introduce to our schools miraculous gardens. Imagine, if you can, a simple growing machine that reaps bushels of organic produce every six weeks. It requires no soil, no land, very little water, and virtually no maintenance. Forget weeding, insecticides or contaminates. Don’t worry about drought, extreme cold or any kind of climatic conditions. How does your garden grow? It just grows and grows and grows right into the future.

Thanks to our community partners, with a huge commitment from Vancity Foundation, we are able to start the program. We have purchased 12 vertical gardens and we will be installing them in seven schools. Beginning in September the gardens will be producing vast quantities of lettuce, kale, herbs, spinach, tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, raspberries - perhaps even beets, carrots, potatoes and everything from yams to parsnips. The possibilities and potential are endless. Students learn to grow their own food. They taste it right from the vine and in so doing appreciate the nutritional benefits and inherent contributions to the environment. They develop a culture of sustainable consumerism and an appreciation for what nature provides. 


And that’s not all. The produce is used to supplement the dozens of breakfast, snack, lunch and backpack programs that make up the Langley School District Foundation’s Food for Thought Campaign, a program that helps feed the more than 3000 students who come to school hungry every day.

THESE ARE THE FACTS
Four years ago the Foundation heard about students who were coming to school hungry. We did a survey of all our 47 schools and discovered that 3000 of our 19,000 students were actually coming to school without having had breakfast, and with no lunch. This was astonishing and disturbing and we knew that if these hungry students didn’t get help, they would most assuredly miss out on the education to which they are entitled. Realizing that the hungry growls of an empty stomach are much louder than the voice of an educator, we knew we had to do something. 

We immediately got the message out, and because Langley is a caring community, individuals, associations, corporations and businesses rallied. Thanks to our community partners, including the United Churches of Langley, Re/Max Treeland, Shewan Foundation, Sunrise Rotary, Central Rotary, Aldergrove Rotary, Poppy Estates, Southridge Community, Lilianne Fowler, Premium Brands, Canuel Caterers, Starline Windows, Vitrum Glass Products, Walnut Grove Business Association, Breakfast Club of Canada, Township of Langley Firefighters, Weekend Fuel Bag, and Save-On Foods, we now have breakfast programs in 15 schools, snack programs in 13 schools, lunch programs in two schools and backpack programs serving 80 families.



THE VERTICAL GARDENS provide, thanks to Vancity Foundation, the final component of the Langley School District Foundation’s Food For Thought Campaign. We now have organic gardens, as well as breakfast, lunch, snack and backpack programs. We can only GROW! Thank you to all our partners. We could not make learning UNFORGETTABLE for every Langley student without you!



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