We’re Gonna Have an Edible Schoolyard at PS 216
It’s known everywhere that I have a desire for food – well, that’s an underestimation – and the perfect way to make me come to your place, occasion, event is to have words like FOOD or REFRESHMENTS included in the invitation. After I heard that P.S. 216 is going to soon host a walk-through for their planned Edible Schoolyard (ESY), the word “edible” attracted me to the prescribed location near 350 Avenue X just like a magnet to iron. Taking support of my co-workers Mr Eng and Dr Law, we moved the 300-pound mass to the schoolyard to take part in the snacking.
I spoke to my own-self that I shall not get silly and think of eating a schoolyard, asphalt can’t be digested. However, It came to my notice a little after that the asphalt-built area at the back will be transformed to an organic farm of about a quarter acre, a kitchen teaching, and a greenhouse, each of them put together in a well constructed, self-sustaining educational institution with modern architecture. Children will participate and grow the items like spaghetti and by having discussions with them and their parents about the nutrition, healthy and planned farming approach. This new go project ESY at the P.S.216 28 is going to promote a healthy lifestyle and reflect our duties for the responsibility of the environment. Also aimed at fewer obese kids otherwise, obesity is just an inch to the epidemic in quite some time.
Think to educate the children by such a practical approach of making them farm, grow and take care of the plants and then even cook their own harvest. It will be soon implemented at the P.S. 216 under the Principal Celia Kaplinsky, who has travelled to Berkeley, California in order to confirm approval of the same. This project gives the City of New York it’s first ESY and this Edible School Yard at P.S. 216 is a four-season and versatile system first of it’s kind. This creates an opportunity where school students plant, grow, cook food and eat together with the fruits, without leaving the studies and taking a comprehensive interdisciplinary curriculum with respect to the State’s Learning Standards which says to connect food systems to academic subjects such as sciences, maths, arts and social studies.
The P.S. 216 is indeed the accurate location for something like the Edible Schoolyard, it will make the school a legal affiliate of the program initiated by Alice Waters, the organic activist and flag-ship chef at the Martin Luther King Jr. middle school in Berkeley at California.
Celia, the Principal has completed all the pre-requisites to make the plan turn into a reality and allies up with a bunch of experts such as John Lyons (President of Focus Features), Brett Williams (Direction at Harp Sharp Entertainment), Amale Andraos and Dan Wood (Founders of Work Architecture) Erica Lowry and Jane Weider (Strategic Advisors, LLC), and everyone is committed to providing the city with the title of Edible Schoolyard. And getting full support and encouragement by the Borough President Marty Markowitz, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Community Education Council 21, Community Board 15, the NYC School Construction Authority, NYCDOE, Acting Superintendent District 21 Ann Marie Lettieri-Baker, City Councilman Domenic Recchia and Assemblyman William Colton.
We will be upheld by the director of Council on the Environment of New York City (CENYC) , Marcel Van Ooyen, the place of starting of these screechers and the five programs: Greenmarket, Open Space Greening, Environmental Education, Recycling, and Youthmarkets. This company stores the potential and experience and the knowledge for this unique and educational proposal. I surely pay homage to the principal, the workers, the parents and of course the students. The time when the food will be available, I promise to be the first volunteer for the tasting. Bon appetite!!
