Good Afternoon New London County School Garden Network Members:

Upcoming Meetings:  

Please join us for our upcoming New London County School Garden meeting on April 5, 2016 at 4:00pm at FRESH New London, 45 Broad Street, New London, CT. 

Grant Opportunities:

Seeds of Change is accepting application from school gardens just like yours. For more information:
https://www.facebook.com/seedsofchange
 

Outdoor Edible School Garden Mini-Grants due March 25, 2016

Ledge Light Health District is now accepting application from any school in New London County (yes, even those funded before) for round two of our Outdoor Edible School Garden Mini- Grants.  Please go to http://llhd.org/farm-fresh for an application. For more information contact Cindy at 860-448-4882 ext. 302.

Farm to School Spotlight: Taking A Bite Out of Food Waste at East Lyme Middle School

 

Here in the Blue Crabs Kiva at East Lyme Middle School, we love compost! And that’s an understatement! “Compost is pretty neat” said Dana G., an 8th grader in the Blue Crab Kiva. “It’s great that we are taking a healthier approach to snacks.” For snack each day we encourage kids to eat whole foods instead of junk food to have a happy healthier life and to teach kids about compost. In our Social Studies room, we have a compost bin where kids can throw in, well, compost! Things like apple cores, banana peels, orange peels, and anything else that can be composted. But this year, we have seen a decline in compost and an increase in candy wrappers and chip bags. That is something that we just can’t handle. So we have started a new movement to get our kiva and the school and maybe even the town to start composting. Our first step is our kiva composting competition where each home base will have their own composting bin and every week or so we will weigh the amount of compost each home base has. If a home base reaches the weight amount, they will receive an apple on their home base branch on a tree cutout outside of our kiva on our bulletin board. Our big plan for this competition is to get the school involved with a composting bin in the cafeteria to show kids how great composting is. Scott Galbo, another 8th grader in the Blue Crabs said “I feel like with this competition we have started, more kids are going to start to love compost.” And our grand plan is to get the whole town involved in compost for their home gardens instead of un-natural fertilizer."​ - 

This update was written by Adam Cappozzoli, an 8th grade student and one of the leaders of the Blue Crab compost initiative.