Edible Schoolyard
The Edible Schoolyard (ESY) is a 1-acre (4,000 m2) garden at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. The Edible Schoolyard was established by restaurateur and activist Alice Waters through the Chez Panisse Foundation. According to the Edible Schoolyard website, the Edible Schoolyard:
involves students in all aspects of farming the garden and preparing, serving, and eating food as a means of awakening their senses and encouraging awareness and appreciation of the transformative values of nourishment, community, and stewardship of the land.
The Edible Schoolyard encompasses garden and kitchen classroom settings and provides a hands-on environment for students in which to apply skills learned in traditional math, science, and humanities classes. The King Middle School garden serves as a model for other Edible Schoolyard affiliate programs that are being established around the country. Currently there are affiliate programs located in New Orleans, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Greensboro, and Brooklyn.
The Edible Schoolyard was founded in 1995 in a vacant lot at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, in Berkeley. It started as the brainchild of Alice Waters, owner of the renowned restaurant Chez Panisse, located just a few blocks from the school. Since its founding, ESY has been the primary project supported by the Chez Panisse Foundation, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization founded by Waters to celebrate the 25th birthday of Chez Panisse. The Foundation continues to play an important role in the operations of ESY. The Foundation and ESY are funded primarily through grants and donations.
In 1994, Waters, who recognized potential in the unused plot of land in back of the school, met with Neil Smith, then the principal of King Middle School, to discuss the possibility of transforming the space into a garden project that would involve students, teachers, and community.
Planning for the Edible Schoolyard garden and after-school cooking classes began in 1995, and were offered in the 1995-1996 school year. The first Edible Schoolyard summer program was offered at the end of this school year. The cooking programs at King used organic produce from a local farm until 1997, when they started using the crops harvested from the now thriving Edible Schoolyard garden. During the 1996-1997 school year, the Edible Schoolyard opened the refurbished Kitchen Classroom, which provided space and equipment for in-school cooking classes.
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