By Gracie Hosea
Special Report
The Richland Parish School Food Service has embraced the concept of farm to school.
The start of our parish success story begins with our green houses. The food service department has 3 green houses at Rayville High School that are being converted into hydroponic gardens.
Fresh tomatoes, a variety of salad greens, and other salad components will be grown for the purpose of providing a healthier meal component. The garden fresh salad ingredients will be available to all of Richland parish schools. The availability of the produce will be a year round project.
The green houses are under the operation of Rory Gresham a local agri-science businessman. After many months of looking at other green house operations, the green houses that are located at Rayville High School are unique to our parish and the state. The Farm to School Seed Exchange program was instrumental in helping to make this project a viable one.
The goal of our project is to provide our students with a healthier more nutritious choice in meals. As a result, more local farm or green house produce will be available at meal times. Menus posted on the Richland Parish Schools website will show which produce items are local and will provide information on the farm growing the item.
In addition to the green houses for school food service, other green houses are being used for educational purposes. Rayville High School has a fourth green house that is operated by Dale Summers, Agri-Science teacher.
Dale’s green house will be a training facility for his FFA team in the identification of different plants, grasses, and gardening equipment. Agri-Science classes will also learn about planting from seed, rooting plants, how and when to plant different produce, and how to operate a green house.
Through the support of the seed grant program, Dale’s program is well on its way to achieving first in the state competition this year.
Coby Whitehead, a special education instructor and 4-H leader, will also use the green house at Rayville High School. Coby plans on incorporating the green house on a learning level.
A Sensory Garden and a work space for growing from seeds will be set up in a section of the Rayville High School green house. Coby will introduce her students to new experiences and allow her students to learn from gardening. Future plans are to tie the green house in with the parish 4-H program.
Delhi High School has a green house that will be used by the Jump Start program.
This program allows students to earn a Carnegie unit in high school. Yvonne Goodman, Agri-Science instructor will be teaching this program. The students will grow bedding plants to sell and will also grow and maintain ferns for rental purposes.
Her students will learn about gardening, money management, as well as, developing customer relation skills. Through their program each student will be more knowledgeable in how to set up a business and what is required to make it operate successfully.
Mangham High is currently working on getting a green house at their site. Beth Gregorie, who teaches Agri-Science, wants to acquire a green house and incorporate the operation into her curriculum. At this time plans are being made to move a donated green house that Beth has located to the high school site.
Stay tuned for more info regarding Richland Parish’s green houses.