The Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation and the Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College

Over the last few years I have found myself thinking more and more about the ways in which children learn about food. For many children there is no way they can relate the food they see in bottles, packets and jars with soil, sunshine, ripeness and satisfying activity. As young adults, many are tentative in their efforts to feed themselves, and are unable to offer themselves one of life’s most accessible joys—sharing delicious food with family and friends every day.

I am convinced that changes in food choices do not come about as a result of cautionary advice, charts or pyramids, but by example and by positive experiences.

I wanted to investigate whether by creating and caring for an extensive vegetable garden and then preparing and cooking the harvested produce, young children could develop greater enjoyment of flavour and texture, a better understanding of cultural and culinary difference, and an increased understanding of the relationship between growing things and caring for the environment. An equally important part of such an experiment would be the sharing around the table and talking about what was being eaten.

 

 

The Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College

In May 2001 I was introduced to the then principal of Melbourne's Collingwood College, Frances Laurino, who enthusiastically endorsed the decision to create a Kitchen Garden to benefit the students from grades 3-6 at the school. These students range in age from 7-13. Each child spends a single period each week in the garden and a double period in the kitchen. The kitchen manager and the gardener are assisted in each class by the classroom teacher and  by some of the wonderful volunteers who have become interested in the project.

 The Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College is now six years old and has attracted considerable interest from other schools, and interested parents and community groups.

In February 2004 I established the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the ongoing support of the successful project at Collingwood College, and to introducing Kitchen Gardens into other primary schools. The Foundation wants to spread the word that by teaching children in a pleasurable way about growing, harvesting, preparing and sharing food, we are able to create a significant force for change..

The Foundation has been granted Deductible Gift Recipient status making all donations tax deductible.

In 2006, after intense lobbying, the Victorian State government announced grants of $2.4 million to part-fund an additional 40 new kitchen garden programs in Victorian primary schools following the successful model at Collingwood College (link to SAKGF). Twenty schools will commence work in early 2007 and a second twenty schools will be selected to start work in 2009.

The Board of the SAKGF will be working very hard over the next four years to ensure that the new projects are successful. We will also be working to reinforce and gain support for pleasurable food education as a means of positively influencing the food choices made by young children.

We have launched a website outlining the work being done by the Foundation. This website is also a valuable resource for other schools.

Please visit our exciting website www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au

New Book - Kitchen Garden Cooking with Kids tells the story of the successful Kitchen Garden at Collingwood College now in its 6th year. The book has been written in collaboration with Anna Dollard, Stephanie's long time friend and research assistant. It records the challenges and the milestones experienced, and offers guidance and practical advice to schools and communities interested in establishing their own kitchen garden. It also includes more than 100 recipes for real food that have all been cooked by the students at Collingwood in a format designed to encourage cooking with children either at home or in the classroom

Other websites of interest are www.collingwood.vic.edu.au and click to the Kitchen Garden page for further details about the project.  For further inspiration also visit www.edibleschoolyard.org: the project inspired by American chef and food writer, Alice Waters, at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkley, California.

For more information aboutsome of the wonderful gardeners who support our projects, visit www.cultivatingcommunity.org.au

 
The illustration on this page comes from Freda Thornton's plan for the Kitchen Garden.
Photographs by Peta Christensen ©

All Rights Reserved ® 2004 Credits: mnemonic