The school garden at Della Davidson Elementary had its grand opening Oct. 1. The garden was funded by the “Eating Good … and Moving Like We Should” program started by The University of Mississippi’s Department of Nutrition and Hospitality Management from the W.K. Kellogg grant.
The garden is located behind the school beside the cafeteria. It has six large plots for growing various types of vegetables, and there are herbs planted in repurposed tires that were painted by some of the art classes. A few fruit tree saplings are sprouting up in the northern sector of the garden. There’s even a section of the area used for composting.
This garden is not the first of its kind. The school garden at Della Davidson Elementary is the eighth and most recent installation of its type in Oxford.
Sunny Young is the architect of the program. She is behind the initiative of the Oxford School District known as Good Food for Oxford Schools. Young and her organization have been working within the local school system to install these gardens and get the kids involved with them.
“When we’re trying to get kids to eat better foods, the best way to do that is to get their hands on it,” Young said. “Anything that they physically put their hands on and help prepare, they’ll eat. It gets them excited about it.”
Since Young got involved with the program about two years ago, the children within the Oxford School District are eating lunches they’d never eaten before. The amount of food the Oxford school cafeterias cook from scratch is currently at an all time high of 75 percent. That number was at 30 percent just last year. This initiative has been so successful under Young that she was asked to give a presentation on the subject at TEDxManhattan earlier this year in New York City.
Laurie Beth Ellis is the fourth grade instructor for Insights at Della Davidson Elementary; Insights is the gifted program for the Oxford School District.
Ellis thinks the gardening is invaluable to her students, but the kids are learning more than better eating habits. At Della Davidson Elementary, the kids are acquiring better social skills and gaining a clearer understanding of the environment and the way that they interact with it, according to Ellis.
“It really is a great thing,” she said. “It gives the kids the opportunity to leave a traditional classroom for a bit, and it takes them out of their shell. This is a safe place for them to open up a little and get their hands dirty.”
Patrick Murphy is a fourth grader in the Insights program at Della Davidson. He helps take care of the beets, carrots and arugula in the garden.
“I’ve liked the stuff we’ve tried so far,” Murphy said, referring to a taste test he and his schoolmates had of the garden’s yield earlier this year. “There’s still a lot left to try, though; not all the vegetables are ready yet.”
