Columbia Falls Wildcat Garden

Columbia Falls is a small rural community located in the northern part of the Flathead Valley in Northwestern Montana, near the entrance to Glacier National Park. Our district consists of two elementary schools, one junior high school, and one high school serving approximately 1200 students.  Approximately 50% of our students qualify for Free and Reduced lunch.  I believe the percentage is actually much higher as our community workforce tends to be seasonal. 

In October 2012, the junior high was selected as a research site for cold zone fruit trees with the Montana Extension Service.  48 very small trees were planted in the Spring of 2013.  We harvested our first fruit this past year.  A small but tasty harvest of apples, pears, and plums.

In the Spring of 2014 a vegetable garden was added.   We have involved many students and classrooms in the development of the garden.  We have harvested plenty of veggies and have had many good garden related interactions but......... it could be so much better.  The garden program still, after three seasons, remains the chief push of mainly one person.  This is not a good thing.  We have such an important mission to provide healthy food for our children and empower them with the knowledge and mindset to grow their own nutritious food.  Having a FoodCorps service member assigned to the junior high this year has really opened our eyes to the many possibilities of creating a healthy food culture at the junior high and we want to go there.  We want our district to go there. With the additional help, we have accomplished a great deal toward that end, but could really use some concentrated assistance to work out some of the bugs in the program and expand to the other schools in the district and give a big boost to our food service program.  We need help with organization of the garden program including attracting and managing volunteers, scheduling garden activities, coordinating classroom lessons and cooking.  Since we are a middle school grades 6-8, it would be most helpful to have garden related activities and lessons that align with the common core standards so that classroom teachers can openly embrace the integration of garden curriculum into their subject areas.