The primary students at Macarthur Adventist College have taken on the exciting challenge of growing and cultivating their very own garden on the school grounds. The garden, which was put together by staff, students and volunteers, is a combination flower/veggie garden and is tended to by the year 3-5 classes as part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden program. As a result, every Thursday is now Kitchen Garden Day!

Learning to Care for the Garden

The students, along with Mrs Jadranka Beecham, spend time in the garden tending to it and harvesting it. The duties of Year 4 students, Rosa Pulepule and Mizpah Kaufusi, are watering the garden and being on snail-patrol, which means “taking snails out of the garden so that they don’t eat the lettuce,” said Rosa.

The garden hosts an assortment of plant and vegetable life, including gardenias, rosemary, chillies, cabbage, pickles, carrots and many other plants, which according to Mrs Beecham, “promotes healthy living, and that’s what excites me.”

Learning Basic Cooking Skills

The children have also been learning basic cooking skills in the kitchen with Mr Jesse Sleight, including looking at utensils and reading simple recipes. In the past few weeks, they’ve also created a few dishes, including pizza, rice paper rolls and fresh pasta, which they made using dough and an authentic pasta-making machine. “We made our own pasta by hand,” said Mr Sleight. “The kids had never seen or eaten fresh pasta before. They discovered it was easy and simple and that they could make tasty food from scratch, using produce from their very own garden.” And that’s the purpose of the project.

Promoting Fresh Food and Nutrition in Schools

The theme of the Stephanie Alexander Garden is ‘Planting, Harvesting, Preparing, Sharing,’ which is embraced at Macarthur as well. “After preparing and cooking,” continues Mr Sleight, “we put all of the tables together in a banquet, and we sit down and share the food that we have prepared.” The project was founded by Australian cook and restaurateur Stephanie Alexander, who felt the need to promote the importance of fresh food and nutrition in schools, as well as to add another dimension to the way schools educate students about food and fresh produce. The Stephanie Alexander Project currently has 482 Kitchen School Gardens scattered around Australia, with Macarthur Adventist College being the first Adventist School in Sydney to take part in the project.

Gardening Benefits Wellbeing of the Students

Primary Coordinator Jessica Lee first heard about the project via email and sent in an application, simply hoping to somehow get involved. What she didn’t expect, however, was being given an $11,000 grant, with a two-year commitment, to kick-start the program at the school!

The project ultimately benefits the wellbeing of the students, which according to Miss Lee, is something she sees daily. “I see the joy in their faces as they’re able to go out and plant seeds in the garden, and then the pride they have when they can go out and pick produce and turn them into something that they can eat,” she says. “It’s teaching them the skills that they need to go and get a recipe, read it and cook it for themselves.”

So what’s next for the Stephanie Alexander Garden at Macarthur Adventist College? Well, Miss Lee sees the future. “I hope it’s something that the whole school can benefit from in the next two years.”

As for Rosa and Mizpah, they’re happy to keep on learning. “We like Thursdays,” they said, “because we get to cook!”

By Ita-Marie Ralago