Sustainability grant helps Derry Area students revive Giving Garden

Recycled scraps from student meals will help grow fresh produce for local food bank recipients in a garden project at Derry Area High School.

Spearheaded by members of the school’s Chick-fil-A Leader Academy, the project received a $10,000 sustainability innovation grant sponsored by Coca-Cola. Among close to 2,000 Chick-fil-A academies at schools throughout the country, Derry Area’s was one of just two awarded the grant funding, according to school Principal Casey Long.

“The students really rose to the occasion with this project,” he said.

Project manager Keely McKlveen, a 2020 Derry Area graduate, said she and the school’s 3o fellow academy members decided to pursue the academy’s goal of “impact through action” by reviving a “Giving Garden” next to the school’s greenhouse. The garden is meant for growing vegetables to benefit the Derry community.

“The garden was started when I was in sixth grade,” said McKlveen, 18, of New Alexandria. “It’s unique to our campus. When the science teacher who started it left the district, the ag department worked on it a little bit, but then it fell by the way,” as priorities shifted at the school.

“Our idea was to revitalize it,” she said.

The academy students were able to start seeds indoors for plants like lettuce and broccoli just before March 12, when the covid-19 pandemic caused closure of the school.

“If the plants survive, they’ll be used,” McKlveen said, noting the school hires help to water and care for ag department plants when school isn’t in session.

McKlveen said it will be up to younger academy members to pick up the baton and complete the Giving Garden project when they are able to return to the school campus.

According to Derry Area Superintendent Eric Curry, the district plans to resume in-school instruction at least two days per week when classes resume in late August.

The school’s technology education students were asked to build raised beds for the garden, McKlveen said. Students also will create 10 bins that will be placed throughout district buildings, to collect banana peels and other suitable scraps to be used as compost for the garden.

Posters will be designed to let people know what items they can place in the bins, which will be emptied at the end of each school day, McKlveen said.

McKlveen, who wants to become a radiologist, is scheduled to begin fall studies in physics and medical physics at Grove City College. She plans to keep tabs on the Giving Garden project. “I hope to come back during the fall break to see how its going,” she said.

Long said students may not be able to complete the project until the spring 2021 semester, as school officials monitor the status of the pandemic.

Produce from the garden will be given to a local food bank. If pandemic precautions have eased sufficiently, some of the crops may be featured in a proposed student-led farmers market, Long said.

His hope is the garden will thrive. “We will look to make this sustainable over the years with local supporters and donors, once grant funds dry up,” he said.

Derry Area last year placed third nationally among Chick-fil-A academies with its “Do Good December” project. McKlveen explained academy members volunteered to sort clothes for the district’s KIND (Kids In Need in Derry) Closet program, which provides necessities for local children. The academy also collected donations to purchase toys to add to the closet program.