Nov 2, 20171 min read

Cook & Grow, fall 2017

Green Thumbs is offering a new after-school program in two schools this fall, thanks to Seed funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The program engages children from grades 3-6 in cooking in their school kitchen, with produce from the school garden and beyond. Children are organized into two groups, and they switch halfway through the 2-hour program, giving every child a chance to do the activities in the garden and the kitchen.

Natalie Meyers, one of the animators of this exciting new program working at Nelson Mandela Park PS shares this:

“We had a wonderful second session of Cook and Grow on Thursday! We made healthy pizzas and a big salad with kale, spinach, carrots, tomatillos, basil and nasturtiums that the kids harvested from the garden. Once again, thank you so much to everyone who made our second session such a success! We had two wonderful newcomers to the program, Kate, a volunteer from Green Thumbs who worked with Karrin in the garden, and Cindy subbed in for Lily in the kitchen this week (and provided these great photos!). Next week the kids want to make sushi so we’re looking forward to that!”

collected for salad & pizza toppings from Nelson Mandela Park PS Garden

Thanks to the all wonderful educators involved in this project: Karrin Huynh, Charmyne Urquhart, Natalie Meyers, Lily Hu, Cindy Fung, teachers Hotho Farah and Becky Zaimi. We also look forward to learning about Tower gardens and starting some indoor growing at Nelson Mandela Park PS!