Happy May and happy summer to you all! Our growing season has arrived and what an inspiring time it is to be invigorated to start planting!
My name is Julianne Elder, and I am a third grade teacher in the Kings Local School District near Cincinnati, Ohio. In addition, I am also one of the lead teachers in our school’s environmental club. This club encourages students to always be thinking of their actions in regard to their environmental impact and how to encourage this lifestyle throughout our school.In the spring, we begin to focus our after school meetings and efforts toward environmental stewardship in our community.This month, we introduced this focus through a screening of the documentary, What’s On YOUR Plate?, to our entire Kings community! This wouldn’t have been possible had it not been for the wonderful efforts made by Aubin Pictures and the brilliant folks that inspired us all with WOYP!
During the fall, we host an environmental fair that focuses on conservation efforts found throughout our community and in the spring we like to shift this focus to community stewardship in regards to locally grown food and organically based nutrition. Our goal was to build an environmental fair focused on innovative sustainable food system practices and how to make healthy local eating a priority for our families. Needless to say, this being our initial kickoff year, the fair was a colossal success!
There were also hands on activities for the families to take part in, like a composting table where our local Soil and Water District office taught the importance of turning scraps into treasure,as well as a veggie and pollinator planting table where kids could start on their own efforts to begin sustainable farming right at home! In addition, we threw together a raffle/silent auction to help us raise money for our outdoor classroom development which, I am thrilled to announce, is kicking off with the purchase of our very own greenhouse! All of the donations made by so many fantastic local businesses and farms helped us reach our goal and we are able to break ground on our project next month!
As mentioned previously, all of this would have not been possible without the inspiring group behind WOYP! We were not only able to raise community awareness about the current crisis with the food industry and how it affects our kiddos, but we were also able to take it a step further and begin to develop a curriculum focused on promoting healthy food and life choices! For everything you do, we are so very grateful to the creators and supporters of What’s On YOUR Plate?! You have made a WORLD of difference in our little Ohio community!