JOHN COFFELTEditor

College Street Elementary School’s afterschool Journey Program has partnered with the Coffee County Soil and Water Conservation District to offer a garden club this year.

Recently, the class has begun harvesting their three raised garden beds and cooking them for healthy snacks.

“We have been working (planting) since the middle of March,” District Soil Technician Nina Hanson said. “We are almost done harvesting everything for this spring.”

The crops consisted of lettuce for salads, turnips-which the kids loved, herbs for the meals, cucumbers, squash and zucchini. For its fall harvest, the club just planted watermelon and pumpkin, which should be in season when the students return to school in the fall.

“We’re calling it healthy harvest,” Hanson said. “For the summer camp I have (the snacks) already prepared, but we did a couple of cooking classes so the kids could see the prep. That way I could take it from seed to fork and see the whole process.”

Hanson said that there were about 180 snacks from three small garden beds.

“The garden club has been so responsible,” she said. “They’ve been so excited to go out and water and check on things.”

“They are really proud of their work,” Hanson said. “One day when one of the kids who wasn’t in the garden club said ‘oh, that’s pretty easy. I could do that’ somebody in the garden club said ‘oh no. it isn’t that easy. I grew that from seed.’ ”

Hanson said that sentiment was exactly what the program is working to teach, that food doesn’t originate at the grocery store, people work hard to produce food.

According to the program’s Lead Instructor Tammy Gipson, about 300 students are served by the afterschool program. Twenty are in the garden club from the third, fourth and fifth grades.

“We are very proud of the success of the CSES Journey Garden Club. Look at all they have accomplished in just three months,” Gibson said. “We are looking forward to future growth as we move toward an enhanced outdoor classroom which all College Street students, faculty and staff can utilize and enjoy.”

The Journey Program is funded by the TN Leaps Grant. Local donors of resources, supplies and time include the Soil Conservation District, the school’s Conference of Parents and Teachers, Dotson’s Produce, Imhoff Landscape Support and Supplies, Manchester Building Supply, Volunteer Paint, Weaver Farms and teachers Hanson, Sara Steelman and Scarlett Barns.

John has been with the Manchester Times since May 2011. John has won Tennessee Press Association awards for Best News Photo and placed in numerous other categories. John is a 1994 graduate of Tullahoma High School, a graduate of Motlow State Community College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He lives in Tullahoma, enjoys painting, dancing and exploring the outdoors.