Students Celebrate New Gardens

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 18 March 2000

There were prayers, blessings, drums, dances, songs and speeches as the community of Grandview/?Uuqinaku'uh School turned the sod on their school ground revitalization project on March 9th. The school, which is located in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in east Vancouver, is attended by children from predominantly aboriginal and refugee families. It has been the dream of staff, students and the community to revitalize an unused part of the school property and create a space that will benefit both the school and the neighbourhood. On March 9th that dream began to unfold.

The project is designed to improve the quality of life for all who live in the community around Grandview/?Uuqinaku'uh School. The unused space will be converted to create community gardens for families to grow food as well as butterfly and humming bird gardens, First Nations ethnobotanical gardens and a First Nations medicine wheel. A Longhouse Outdoor Classroom inspired by the Musqueam traditional Longhouse, will also be built.

At the groundbreaking ceremony, architect Tracy Penner, talked about the unique way in which ecology played a role in the planning of the gardens. The word "ecology" means "the knowledge of home" and in a tangible way, these gardens are an effort to return the environment back to its original "home"" As planners of the community gardens met with students, staff, and community members they combined their knowledge of the area to choose plants for the project that once grew in the neighbourhood. Penner also talked about the importance of a natural environment in an urban space.

"For many of these children in this neighbourhood, it will be the primary natural environment," Penner said.

Student council president, Johnny Hun, also addressed the assembly. "I have learned that it's important to keep the environment clean," he said and talked about excitement that he and his fellow students feel as they anticipate the return of plants and animals to a restored habitat.

MCC, along with a dozen other sponsors including the city of Vancouver, banks and credit unions, and other private donors, is privileged to be a part of these gardens. In 1992, the MCC/Conference of Mennonites Jubilee Trust Fund was established as a way to give substance to the MCC apology to Native people for our part, intentional or not, in the suffering brought about by the arrival of settlers in North America. The fund is specifically designed to provide scholarships to native students and to support native gardening initiatives. The Grandview/?Uuginak'uuh School project is the first gardening grant to be approved through this fund. The grant will help build raised boxes and provide topsoil. As well, Ecoworks (part of MCC BC's Employment Development Department) has already built boxes for trees and will build retaining walls, bridges and more as the project develops.

MCC is also looking for volunteers who are interested in working with families to plant and tend the gardens over the growing season. Darryl Klassen, MCC BC's Aboriginal Neighbours Program person, sees it as an opportunity to nurture and be nurtured.

"It's an opportunity for us in the church to meet our neighbours, to minister literally at the ground level to those who are needy and thereby be enriched ourselves," he says.

As the ceremony came to a close with the official sod-turning, children grabbed shovels from the adults, clearly expressing ownership of a project that will benefit them in ways beyond the physical. As experienced gardeners already know, seeds are planted in both ground and gardener; in the latter, they are seeds of faith, confidence and self-esteem that come from participating with the Creator in the miracle of growth. And at Grandview/?Uuginak'uuh School, that miracle has already begun.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org