Tantramar Regional High School is home to a newly planted food forest which will help supply the school’s breakfast program and culinary classes well into the future.
The project is one of three perennial, edible gardens happening at Tantramar region schools thanks to funding secured by EOS Eco-Energy.
CHMA dropped by on planting day at TRHS to hear more about the project:
Jory Parsons is graduating from TRHS this year. While he won’t be reaping the rewards of the food forest directly, he is proud to be part of the planting so that future students can harvest.
“It’s kind of a big thing to leave a legacy here,” says Parsons about TRHS. “My parents have gone here, my uncles have gone here, my cousins have gone here. And a lot of people in the community, a lot of our family friends, a lot of business owners in Sackville have gone here. And so it’s just nice to know that you’re putting your footprint at the school, and kids can enjoy it in the future.”
Another fringe benefit of Parsons participation is that it may have sparked some interest in his own potential future garden. “I’m intrigued,” he says.
Jon Estabrooks is the teacher coordinating the food forest, which he says will help benefit the school’s breakfast program and culinary classes. Estabrooks says he’s hoping grade nine students will take ownership of the forest and see it through for the next four years.
Estabrooks is the experiential learning coordinator at TRHS. “The key thing for me is to make connections with the community, to have kids actually doing real jobs, real things that make sense,” says Estabrooks. Students will learn about pruning, weeding, harvesting and general caretaking of the food forest, he says. It may even lead to opportunities beyond that.
“It’d be nice to tie in the community, and it’d be nice to tie in the seniors,” says Estabrooks. “What I’ve suggested is maybe we could have them come in, they could do canning, they could do preserving… That’s kind of a bit of a lost art as it is. And I think it makes a nice connection between the teenagers and the elderly in the community.”
The forest at TRHS has seven different dwarf apple trees, blueberry bushes, and rhubarb plants says EOS Eco-Energy intern Breanna MacLeod. “We have some milkweed, day lilies, lavender, sage, oregano, all different plants that we’ve kind of specifically chosen for the climate,” MacLeod says.
TRHS students also got to help design their food forest, with professional guidance and teaching from Estelle Drisdelle of Understory Farm and Design.
EOS Eco-Energy director Amanda Marlin says the food forest project is lucky to have a variety of funders including the Horizon Health Network and the Mount Allison Students Union Green Investment Fund, which is funded directly by students, and goes towards green capital projects in Sackville. And EOS intern Breanna MacLeod, who is working on coordinating the three food forests, is funded by the ECHO Foundation through Mount Allison University.
“And then the schools have certainly partnered and provided resources and support systems as well,” says Marlin. In addition to TRHS, Port Elgin and Dorchester schools have also planted forests.