LYNN — The Salad Days Program, which began in 2017 by working with Callahan, Ford, and Ingalls elementary schools and Fecteau-Leary through The Food Project, gives third-graders the chance to learn how to plant and harvest their own lettuce and is now expanding to other elementary schools in the city.
The program is now expanding to Aborn, Cobbet, Connery, Fallon and Shoemaker elementary schools.
The Food Project also has pre-existing partnerships with Brickett, Lincoln-Thompson, Washington S.T.E.M., Harrington and Hood elementary schools.
The Salad Days program is a model that was replicated from Backyard Growers, where The Food Project goes to schools and builds raised garden beds, which are separated into sections so each third-grade student can have their own section of plants to take care of.
“It’s cool because they get to do it on their own and they can go out and watch their plants grow during recess,” The Food Project’s regional director of the North Shore, Ludia Modi, said.
“They’re then able to take it home and eat what they grew.”
Each school is allocated a certain number of raised beds, depending on how many third-grade students are in each class. The beds are then split up into individualized boxes.
The Food Project visits the schools on a day in May to show the students how to plant and water the seeds and then returns on a day in June to show them how to properly harvest their lettuce.
“Our main goal is for students to be able to have experience digging in the ground, planting seeds, and harvesting it so they really have that exposure and get hands-on experience in how to grow their own food,” Modi said. “Hopefully they’ll be inspired to try healthy food in the future, and maybe take what they learned home and start their own garden with their family.”
Prior to COVID-19, the students were able to wash the salad using a salad spinner at school, and then eat it with a homemade salad dressing provided by The Food Project.
Now, the students have to bring the salad home, but are still given the homemade salad dressing to enjoy with their family.
After the students have harvested the salad plants in June, The Food Project will plant winter squash so when the students come back in the fall as fourth-graders, they can harvest that too.
“I think it’s wonderful for students to be able to see this,” Modi said. “It’s a prime starting point to get them excited about it.”
The third-grade classes have a life-science curriculum which includes learning about plant life, so Modi said the Salad Days program fits in perfectly.
“They’re being taught this and now they have an expansion of learning it,” Modi said.
If the schools have any summer programming, The Food Project will plant more crops so that parents and neighbors can come out and help grow and harvest them.
“We try to make it more of a community focus,” Modi said. “If the community can’t always get involved, then we go out and do the watering… Food is a necessity and being able to grow food is a tool that every young person should be excited about and take as a starting point.”
