By Tammy Keith, ArkansasOnline
CONWAY — Sarah Lane was cheering for the carrots in the Ida Burns Elementary School learning garden in Conway.
“We have some carrots that look like they’re going to be ready next week, so I’m crossing my fingers that we can use them before the kids leave for the summer,” she said before school was out. May 24 was the students’ last day, and the carrots “looked good,” she said.
Lane is the FoodCorps service worker for the Conway School District, and she also helps with the garden at Carolyn Lewis Elementary School.
Ida Burns Elementary was one of three winners in the fall 2017 Captain Planet Project Learning Garden contest, which offered schools in Harps service areas the chance to win a $3,000 learning garden. The grant for the garden is sponsored by the Captain Planet Foundation, Dole and Harps.
All the elementary schools in the district have gardens, but this grant was for five additional raised beds, a mobile cooking cart so teachers could prepare food from the garden for their classes for a hands-on experience, knives, a blender and “curriculum to tie into academic standards,” Lane said.
