Tip Tap- The Simple Garden Handwashing Station

This past MLK Day, a National Day of Service, I had the opportunity to join my fellow FoodCorps Service Member, Caroline, in Warren County for a day of garden rejuvenation at Warren County High School. My task was to lead a group of high schoolers in building a hand washing station using all free or recycled materials. Luckily, with the aid of instructions from sendacow.org, we were able to create a working hand washing station in an area of the garden without access to water.

Now, these "tip-taps"are used by some African villages to reduce disease risk after working in gardens or with livestock, and are a convenient and easy device to construct in places where plumbing is not an option. Using bamboo, a gallon jug, some twine, a pencil, a mesh baggie, and bar soap, your garden can feature a really fantastic tool for teaching garden hygiene, and some cultural appreciation!

More complete instructions can be found on Send A Cow's website, but basically you construct a lever that tilts the jug downward, creating a steady stream of water through a small hold in the handle. The neat thing is that it is controlled by a foot pedal (small bamboo stick), leaving both of your hands free to wash with soap and water. To lessen the chance of a muddy pool of water below, dig the soil down a few inches and add gravel or stones for drainage.

Have students be creative in their design, but it may take a few tries to get the physics right!

Syngenta supports our GC Coop Ext. School Garden Network!

Thank you Syngenta for your support of our 
GC Coop Ext. School Garden Network

 this school year!

Kirkman Park 2nd graders: "THANK YOU WHOLE FOODS MARKET!

Kirkman Park Elementary Second Graders and their teachers,Ms. Rushby (on left) and Ms. Gunn (right) say "THANK YOU WHOLE FOODS MARKET"

They are so excited about composting this spring!

Madison Elementary loves their Compostor!

Our school garden friends out at Madison Elementary are happy to receive their compostor from Whole Food Market in Greensboro!

In the photo are Renee Ford-McDougle (1st grade teacher) on the left, Carolyn Burke (Media Specialist) center, and Ashley Gordon (guidance counselor) on the right.

Reedy Fork Elementary recieves their Earth Machine from Whole Foods Market!

Pamela Moody, Lisa Pursley,  Lorraine Marshall, Brandon Chavis, ,and  LaTrinda Williams at Reedy Fork Elementary just recieved their Earth Machine composter  donated by Greensboro's Whole Foods Market. The teachers won the composter in a drawing at the School Garden Workshop held at the Edible Schoolyard in November. The Reedy Fork Gardening team can't wait to start their school garden this spring! Four other schools also won composters in our workshop drawing. We will be featuring them in separate posts soon!

Sweet Potato Month

As a FoodCorps Service Member, my daily goal is to connect kids to healthy food in three ways: garden engagement, hands-on nutrition education, and access to fresh, local food at school. The sweet potato has proved to be the most versatile of vegetables to achieve this goal, which is no surprise because it is the most famous of North Carolina’s crops.

I serve in 20 classrooms across five schools- that’s over 300 kids per week! In order to make my time most meaningful to so many unique kids, I have implemented the three-pronged approach to a specific vegetable or fruit each month, which coincides with Guilford County School’s “Food Focus” (see lunch menu). With sweet potatoes featured in November, students were able to harvest the produce they had grown in their very own gardens. At Fairview Elementary, third graders dug 28 pounds of sweet potatoes from a 4’X4’ garden plot! We left our bounty to cure in the classrooms in paper bags for a couple weeks and then as Thanksgiving drew near, we got cooking!

With portable cooking equipment donated from All Clad cookware, I’m able to bring a mobile kitchen of sorts into the classroom. For November, I prepared a cooking demonstration for mashed sweet potatoes. Students took part in the mixing and mashing of ingredients, and took home a hand-made recipe card to share with family for the holiday. Most students enjoyed the natural sweetness of the mashed sweet potatoes, but most importantly, everyone gave it a try!

Students at Oak Hill Elementary experienced sweet potatoes in a new way at lunch—a tasting table was set up serving raw sweet potato sticks with tzatziki Greek yogurt dip. The 100 pounds of taters were donated from Farmer Larry of Troxler Farms in Browns Summit. Students were willing to try this different snack, and many came back begging for the recipe! Upon leaving the lunchroom, students were able to share their preferences with us via a sticker voting board.

Local sweet potatoes were featured on GCS lunch lines on November 30 and it was fantastic to see many kids choose them, perhaps due in part to their month-long sweet potato education.

O'Henry Article on our School Gardens! Nov.2012

We got covered in the November issue of O"Henry Magazine, go school gardeners!!!