Lacombe Composite High School’s Ecovision Club recently held a celebration to honour the harvest and also commemorate being named the Greenest School in Canada.
“We have been running agricultural classes for four years now and every semester we have a celebration of some sort. In the fall, we have the Harvest Festival, LCHS teacher, Ecovision founder and recent Chamber Citizen of the Year Steve Schultz said. “This one is special because we are celebrating being the Greenest School in Canada.”
To celebrate, Ecovision welcomed their volunteers, partners and Grade 6 students from Lacombe Upper Elementary school to Greek feast, made from the produce of LCHS gardens. The Greek food was made with the help of an Ecovision volunteer and participants took part in agricultural workshops following the feast.
“It is quite an honour to be able to partner with the community, partner with students and partner with individuals in our school,” Schultz said. “We have been able to produce more food than we can use so now we can give it back to the community in a celebration.”
Schultz said it is very important for Ecovision to recognize the students, staff, partners and volunteers who helped create their community gardens, along with their other agricultural products like beekeeping.
“It is important to celebrate the students and volunteers who have put a lot of hard work into planting the garden, weeding it, watering it and then harvesting it,” he said. “The volunteers adopt a portion of the garden and in return, they get to harvest that garden and all the student gardens during the summer months as long as they leave some produce left over for us to use during the school year.
“The comitment to that is a half hour every week or one hour every two weeks. We had about approximately 12-15 volunteers.”
On the students side, each agricultural class is about 90 minutes longs and goes most days of the week.
“They take care of the gardens and do the harvesting, planting and experimenting,” he said.
Schultz added the club is always looking for more partners and volunteers
“Contact the school or me at steven.schultz@wolfcreek.ab.ca. We love to partner with people in the community,” he said.
Schultz also wanted to ensure that Sobeys and No Frills were recognized for donating parts of the feast that did not come from the gardens.
“We also want to thank Lacombe Upper Elementary School for being willing to celebrate with us. It is an honour and privilege to have such a great community to live in and partner with,” he said.
todd.vaughan@lacombeexpress.com
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