In a bid to instil and nurture a love for plants, gardening and the natural environment in pupils, an Ida’s Valley resident and community volunteer has come up with a new project to be introduced at the Ida’s Valley Primary School.
Maghmoed Kara, chairman of Stellenbosch Community Care, who operates a soup kitchen in the area and previously ran the vegetable garden at the school, says he thought of the idea to plant seedlings in wooden plant boxes at the school after the space for their vegetable garden became unavailable.
He was spurred on to think of “an-out-of- the-box” alternative and the idea came to him about a month ago.
He discussed it with school management and was given the go-ahead. The new plant project will entail the construction of wooden plant boxes in which seedlings will be planted, kept at the school and cared for by the pupils.
Deputy principal, Zachary Snyder is hopeful the new plant project will benefit the school in several ways. “The need at our school has increased tremendously with an increase in numbers at our school’s feeding scheme and by growing the herbs and spices we can supplement our meals and give it extra flavour and nutrition,” he says.
Growing herbs and spices in the plant boxes, he adds will not only serve a practical purpose as meal addition, but in the process the children will be taught how to grow and take care of seedlings.
The plan is to allocate plant boxes to individual classes so the children can take ownership of and decorate or paint their box in bright colours, just as they prefer.
Mr Snyder says: “The children will plant the seeds themselves and educationally they will learn to apply the lessons learnt in the classroom in natural sciences on growing the plants and with them in the process becoming more environmentally conscious.
“The children can take ownership of their plants in their boxes and in this way, we involve everyone.”
The vision, he adds is to develop and educate the children holistically.
Mr Kara says: “We don’t only want to teach them about the agricultural part of the plant project but teach them about business as well and how they can maybe one day grow their own plants at home to sell and start their agricultural business.”
But for the plans to proceed, the plant project needs donations to get them started. Mr Kara says he has already built the first plant box as a blueprint, but they do need donations of pallets to build more boxes to get the project off the ground.
There are volunteers on stand-by to assist with the construction of the boxes once donations of pallets and nails are received. “We do ask that people please help with donations of the soft pallets to build the wooden frames for the plants,” Mr Kara appeals.
In addition to the pallets, donations of any soil, seedlings and water cans are welcome. Tayla’s Seedlings run by Tayla Prince, in Wellington, has already vowed to donate seedlings to the project to get them started once the plant boxes are compete.
Mr Snyder says on their part, the school is more than willing to give businesses branding space or put up signage of project partners on their property should they assist with any donation toward the newly initiated plant project.
School principal Anton Gordon pledged his support to the project and gave the team the green light to make it happen.
Businesses, nurseries or hardware stores that can assist the school to get the project going can contact Mr Snyder by sending an email to zacharysnyder@idasvalleyps.org.za or send a WhatsApp message to 083 539 3260.
