Garden Classrooms

Our goal is to establish a garden at Chemawa Indian School as a community partnership between the school, Salem-Keizer Education Foundation, and the local food bank.

The Chemawa Indian School is the oldest continuously operating boarding school in the United States and its graduates number in the thousands. Current students represent 64 tribes. The Salem Schools Foundation (dba Salem-Keizer Education Foundation) is a private nonprofit organization that funds and operates education programs to expand on classroom learning opportunities in our community's public schools.

Our garden aims to increase healthy food knowledge, provide a hands-on laboratory to achieve grade level expectations, and establish school gardens as a volunteer-driven asset. In a landscape dominated by industrial agriculture, we are engaging the community in building a sustainable food system that supports local producers. Our garden is entering its third growing season and is becoming integrated into the Kate Mitchell Elementary community. We want the teachers and students to feel full ownership of the space, but many of them do not have gardening backgrounds.

Our goal is to further integrate the garden into the school community through curricular connections, community service, nutritional awareness, and understanding of the food cycle.

The goal of this garden project is to expand our existing garden space to include an orchard. The orchard would allow students to see a wider variety of produce that can be grown right here in New Mexico. They will learn that some produce, such as zucchini, tomatoes, and herbs, grow on bush like plants. They will see that other produce, such as apples, peaches, and cherries, grow on trees.