Andover Elementary School Students Learn Homesteading Techniques Through New School Garden

Since the spring of 2024, staff members at Andover Elementary School (AES) have been volunteering their time to a large garden project behind the school building. School secretary Amanda Beliveau and teachers Rachael Wyman, Brooke Harris, and Sarah Woodbury have been instrumental in bringing this exciting initiative to fruition.

AES is a small, rural school in western Maine with fifteen staff members and twenty-six students. Several of these staff members have farms of their own and are eager to pass down the traditional skills of gardening and food preparation-including canning-to students. The garden project is designed to embody the school's vision of AES as place that fosters a positive and personalized learning environment and allows for relationship-building in a respectful and inclusive setting.

Last fall, after getting approval from their school board, Beliveau, Wyman, and Harris applied for a $3,000 Whole Kids Garden Grant through the Whole Kids Foundationto bolster this effort. They were awarded that funding on August 1, 2024, and since then, even more volunteers have stepped forward to help with the garden project.

This fall, as part of their daily classroom routines, AES students have been spending time outside preparing, planting, weeding, and harvesting the garden. That work continues with the Andover After-School Program. AES has purchased garden tools and wheelbarrows for students, and staff members and volunteers are working to build and till twenty raised beds. These will be used for strawberry and raspberry plants, as well as other crops that grow in the spring, like asparagus, dill, and daffodils.

AES hopes that the garden project will eventually include a bird-watching element and a section of pollinator plants to attract more birds and bees to the area. In the future, students will also learn to can and ferment food. Additionally, AES has purchased sewing and knitting machines, and community volunteers are ready to share these additional homemaking skills with students.

Information for this article was provided by Andover Elementary School. To submit good news from your school, fill out the Maine Department of Education (DOE)good news submission form.