Berkeley chef Alice Waters’ dream of creating edible schoolyards so students can learn to grow and eat fresh organic vegetables is becoming a reality in the Roaring Fork Valley. In Carbondale, the dream is being taken even further.

Roaring Fork High School is set to become the site of the first combined Edible Schoolyard/Farm School in Colorado, which may become the model for future such projects throughout the state.

During the school year, the proposed 42’ diameter greenhouse dome and 1.5 acre organic garden will provide opportunities for RFHS teachers to conduct applied education classes, as well as producing vegetables for the high school cafeteria.

From May through September, it will be used to train interns on how to run a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business, which is a program where customers sign up to receive regular deliveries of produce from a local farm each growing season. A 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture study indicates that 12,549 U.S. farms reported marketing products through a CSA program.

Jerome Osentowski, Colorado Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute (CRMPI) operator and 25 year veteran of alternative gardening practices, came up with the idea for a CSA Farm School when he, Jennifer Craig of Ute City Farm and Ken Kuhns of Peach Valley CSA partnered with Fat City Farmers to form Aspen Homegrown which provided training to ten students last year. “I was thinking, how do we train more CSA farmers for high altitude gardening?” said Jerome speaking on the genesis of the project, “Why not create an official school that would train 20 students a year?” That began his quest to find a permanent location for the project.

Carbondale resident Illène Pevec, who’s been creating school gardens for 11 years and is doing her PhD at CU in the benefits of gardening for youth, suggested locating the school at Roaring Fork High. When principal Cliff Colia was approached about the possibility, he immediately said yes.

Michael Thompson of Fat City Farmers produced architectural plans for the greenhouse and interns of CRMPI’s June Permaculture course came up with a plan for the garden which was presented along with a formal proposal at the May 13th Re-1 School Board meeting, and unanimously approved. The plan and proposal can be viewed at http://rfhs-greenhouse.blogspot.com/ 

RFHS science teacher Hadley Hentschel attended the first public meeting, held at the high school on July 13th. He’s developing an agricultural biology curriculum that he says, “will focus on the science of soil, crops and water as it applies to the students’ daily life as far as putting food on the table.” He already has sixty students signed up for his classes. Health teacher Jennifer Edwards is planning to utilize the garden to teach the relationship between nutrition and health.

The often difficult task of obtaining funds is now in full swing. The project received a $5,000 CU outreach grant which Pevec applied for, to help purchase relevant curriculum and reference books, but while some of the funding for the construction of the garden and greenhouse is being provided by grants and donations from organizations such as Fat City Farmers, Slow Food Roaring Fork, the Brady Foundation, and C.O.R.E., the project coordinators hope to solicit more funds from community members.

Osentowski thinks the Carbondale community will get behind the idea of linking healthier school lunches with prevention of disease and obesity. “This is an opportunity for our kids to make the connection between their food and their health,” he said, “How cool will it be for kids to eat salads in their cafeteria made with vegetables they grew themselves in their school greenhouse?”

CRMPI administrator Brian Blount has been working on putting together some community fundraising events, starting with a showing of the documentary film FRESH, which explains how the corporate food industry affects our health and our environment. According to the website http://www.freshthemovie.com/, the film features “people across America who are re-inventing our food system,” including sustainable agriculture stars such as Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and The Omnivore’s Dilemma.

FRESH will be shown at the Roaring Fork High School on August 12 at 7pm. The event is free, but is intended to generate donations to the RFHS garden project.

As soon as the necessary funding is acquired, construction will begin on the greenhouse, which will take about a week to erect. If all goes according to plan, Roaring Fork High School students and teachers will be enjoying fresh organic vegetables in their cafeteria lunches next spring.

LINKS:

Roaring Fork High School Gardens:
http://rfhs-greenhouse.blogspot.com/
CSA Farm School Video Trailer:
http://www.fatcityfarms.org/video/FPfinal.html
Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute:
http://www.crmpi.org/
Aspen Homegrown
http://www.aspenhomegrown.com/Home.html
USDA Alternative Farming Systems Information Center
http://www.nal.usda.gov/afsic/pubs/csa/csa.shtml