Cleveland Elementary School won the award for “Best Community Collaboration” for its school garden with student participation.
The award comes from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
This is the first year of the statewide garden competition, which aims to highlight the impact of school gardens in creating educational opportunities for nutrition, agriculture and the experiential education in a variety of disciplines.
Their program follows the gardening cycle beginning in August, where they learn about seasonality, climate and weather, plant seeds in the fall, learn about harvesting, and then learn how to eat healthy along the way.
Sarah Mossman, the garden educator at the school, started it almost 10 years ago and loved watching it and the kids growing up.
“They like to tend to their own food,” Mossman said. “And then the benefits of healthy eating by connecting where their food comes from.”
Mossman says she wishes some of the little gardeners would grow up and want to be farmers, it’s one of the kids’ favorite times just to be outside and enjoy the outdoors.
Mossman said they were honored to win “Best Community Collaboration,” but would continue to work for the Best Garden award for years to come.
The school garden is in partnership with OKC Beautiful, and they are proud of the success of this program.