MDFT FLOOD GARDEN

In the Flood Garden on Inauguration Day

2012-02-24T18:34:00.000-08:00

This was a very special day indeed. Not only was it a wonderful way to show our community how beautiful our Flood Garden has become but it was also Uncle TJ's birthday. So we celebrated with songs, speeches, great food and a wonderful tour of the Flood Gardens.

THE GREAT REVEAL!! Head Master David Gido was very proud to reveal the Flood Garden to today's visitors

Our duck house is painted and all ready to house our new tenants. The fish pond looks great and soon the plants we planted around it will really make it look like a real pond. We need to fence the animal areas before we can move in the ducks and the tilapia

WE HAVE RABBITS NOW!! They have become very fat and soon we hope to have babies and learn all sorts of lessons from them. We also have Guinea Pigs and one of them has had babies. We will devote more posts on just our animals as they become part of the classroom lessons.

This is one of our rabbits behind their little chicken wire doors. The rabbits do not have names yet. Maybe we will have a contest with the children to see what names win!!

Auntie Robyn loved the rabbits

The Maasai house will not only allow us to study Tanzanian history and culture but also makes a very handsome kitchen! I especially like the Maasai warrior drawings on the walls of the house and the painted tires!

Salum, a garden volunteer and friends of David, David himself, Uncle TJ and Mr. Mwasaga, MDFT's new advocate

Inside our Maasai House Kitchen. It is very spacious and unbelievably sturdy. It is also provides an unexpected shelter from the intense Tanzanian heat. Many, many meals will be cooked here from now on.

With just a few bed sheets and blue tarps, David Gido and the MDFT teachers transformed this once garbage dumb into a wonderful banquet space. It looks good enough for a wedding reception!!

Flowers are always beautiful and today they added a wonderful elegance for our inauguration banquet

Our greens are looking great considering how hot and dry it is during the Tanzanian dry season. In fact, our flat leaf veggies are the only ones thriving in the intense heat. We have learned an important lesson in seasonal planting, even when we think it is not too hot for humans!

Mr Mwasaga and TJ were kind enough to speak to the group on this important day. Mr. Mwasaga is a member of our community who has come to our aid and advocates for MDFT whenever petty local officials come around looking for excuses to fine the school. He told us how important the Flood Garden has become for community and how it is important to invest in the youth. Mr. Mwasaga is a retired park ranger and use to work in the Safari tourism scene. He is very familiar with the written and unwritten Tanzanian history and geography and hearing him speak really reminds us of the importance of the elder generation in the lives of our children. We hope to use his wisdom and guidance in our attempts to recreate traditional culture for our kids.

TJ travels from school to school in the state of Michigan challenging students to play their part and pick up the slack in the economy through service and volunteering. Today he challenged everyone in the audience to consider their roles in the growth of the children at MDFT. he reminded everyone that each one of us is like a drop of rain, we have a purpose and thus must fulfill that purpose. By ourselves we fulfill a purpose but together we can start a flood.

We would like nothing else than to flood Arusha with Flood Garden schools. Since December, when the first seeds were planted in the ground, we have already witnessed the change in our students, the growth in our teachers and a sense of wonder and hope in our community. People stop by just to hang out and many have a lot of questions. Soon, we hope to plant flowers, fruits and veggies throughout our neighborhood. In a few years, we hope that our entire village looks like our flood garden; a busy but clean urban environment with tranquil, beautiful and bountiful garden spaces.

In the kitchen getting food

February 17th, A Very Joyful Day

2012-02-24T17:55:00.000-08:00

Here are some highlights of this special day:

The wonder in our child lost in song makes us understand how important it is to preserve their sense of discovery.

Uncle TJ showed the children videos of themselves on his iPad! They went NUTS!! These children seldom , if ever, see themselves on film or photos so this was a real treat.

We are no where near being able to afford technologies such as interactive tablets but watching the children watch themselves on the iPad was truly amazing. We currently cannot afford electricity for the school so this dream will have to wait a while.
Uncle Rich recorded video of the children too!

Auntie Joyce also showed the children the wonders of her interactive tablet. Just look at them!!!

Auntie Joyce and Auntie Robyn signing our guest book during their visit

A Very Special Day!!

2012-02-24T17:32:00.001-08:00

Uncle TJ came to spend his birthday with us at MDFT today !! He is our favorite uncle, the founder of New World Flood and the inspiration behind the name of our garden "Flood Garden". Uncle TJ is a former American Football star and the supporters of many social causes in the USA and so it it an honor and an inspiration every time he comes.

Uncle TJ brought us lots of sweets!!!

He is our biggest fan and a great supporter of MDFT

He came with lots a sweets and a simple message: Everyone is a drop of rain and it only takes one drop of rain to begin a flood.

At MDFT, we will be raising children who understand Uncle TJ's philosophy about playing one's role in life. The children at MDFT have a big role to play in the future transformation of Tanzania.

First the children sang welcome songs led by teacher Jackie, teacher Agnes and teacher Nixon. Then after our guests signed our guest book, they were treated to classroom demonstrations in the baby class (our Seeds), the middle class (our Sprouts) and older class (our New Stems). They were great!! They more songs and had a blast playing with Uncle TJ's videos on his iPad.

the older children singing welcome songs!!

Then Uncle TJ and his team were taken to see our Flood Garden. We are very very proud of our garden. David Gido, the head master and his wonderful team of teachers and helpers covered the garden so that we could have a GREAT REVEAL!!. Everyone was shocked and touched at how beautiful our garden looks. It is pretty enough to perform weddings in!!!

The Flood Garden wrapped up in bed sheets and ready for the big REVEAL!!!

The MDFT staff served a wonderful buffet of rice and traditional beef stew accompanied by vegetables from the garden and fruits. The food was delicious!!

Inside our Maasai house kitchen, the helpers served a wonderful meal

The cucumbers were grown in our Flood Garden and went well with the other fruits and veggies

What a great innauguration day Feb. 17th turned out to be!!

January Updates

2012-02-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

This is the smallest pond. We hope to house our Tilapia fry

You can see our MDFT Primary School building in the background. Our front yard has has been transformed!!

Our painted hen house is all ready for new tenants

A view of the entrance to our Flood Garden. The Maasai house on the left will serve as our kitchen so we can have wonderful meals in the garden.

Our duck house and pond are all ready. As soon as we can afford to fence the animal area, we will begin to bring in the first of our animals.

This is another view from the animal homes

Successes and Failures...

2012-02-03T17:40:00.000-08:00

So a lot of our veggies are really doing well but we have also experienced some little failures.

Our proud cucumbers

For example, we planted some cucumbers but many seedlings did not make it. You can see in this picture that we have a couple of cucumber plants climbing poles. Those are the ones that did pretty well and we are so excited to see really fat cucumbers growing right in our front yard!!

We also had insects that destroyed our cucumber crop and we will have to figure out what to do about that.

We planted more tomatoes in the places where we lost the cucumbers.

To protect the seeds and seedlings from the sun and from the birds, we started using traditional methods. We have covered them with banana leaves! Hopefully this will work and we will lose less veggies.

These are all wonderful lessons...especially the failures. It will be very exciting to watch our children learn like we are learning. So, we are now writing a small manual to keep track of what we are doing and to record our thought process as we create the garden. These records may also prove helpful when we expand this garden school concept elsewhere.

Protecting the seedlings with banana leaves

Professional Development

2012-02-03T12:22:00.000-08:00

Our teachers are very excited to learn more about gardening. Cecilia, our local horticulture expert opened her farm to MDFT teachers today. So today is Professional Development day!!

Crossing the Indiana Jones bridge

We call Cecilia's garden Flood Garden 2 (FG2). This is because we will be doing much of our learning here. We also hope to send our older students here to learn from Cecilia's ponds, flowers, exotic plants and animals.

The fun way to get to Flood Garden 2, is to cross this scary Indiana Jones bridge. There is like a 15 foot drop into the river and when it rains, it cakes with mud and makes crossing this bridge quite interesting. It is all quite beautiful, peaceful...

So, today our teachers braved the bridge to get to Cecilia's farm to learn.

In this beautiful farm, we hope to pick up tips, ideas and tools to help us make our school better. Cecilia pants ornamental plants and grows exotic fish.

She is Maasai and her farm is part of her Maasai family property. The Maasai have a long history of farming and we hope to be able to understand Tanzanian history and native practices.

These are gourdes the Maasai carry milk in

Our young teachers spend the day walking through the grounds, learning about the plants and talking about how to apply Cecilia's teachings into our school curriculum.

The plan is for the teachers to create learning stations in Cecilia's farm. Our older students, as well as visitors, will be able to learn about the plants and the fish by following the directions on the learning stations.

Gold guppies pond

We want to use as much as we can as learning tools. In this small pond, there is a lot of pond science to learn. We hope our students will do many small experiments!

Learning to chase chickens....hehehe!

Head Teacher Jackie in Cecilia's beautiful gardens

We would love ideas for simple experiments we could include in our learning stations for our 7 year olds to learn.

The Story of our School

2012-01-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

David Gido, is a young teacher who decided 2 years ago to open a primary school for very low income kids, many of whom are orphans or live with single moms. He started a one room school but soon, many families began to see his school as the only viable education solution for their kids. Students as young as 3 began to walk great distances to attend David's school and he was forced to look for a second location for his school. So, David hired a couple of his teacher friends paying them from his own salary. He soon was forced to rent a larger space to create the second location and Making a Difference Foundation Tanzania (MDFT) Primary School was born.

MDFT is located in Arusha, Tanzania. In Tanzania, most parents are expected to pay school fees, school uniforms and school supply. This often makes it impossible with an average income of $500 per year. We have 2 locations, about 100 students and 5 teachers. Our students range between the ages of 2 and 7 years old and we want to bring the love of gardening and growing their own great foods to kids even that young.

Making a Difference Foundation Tanzania Primary School Building (we have 3 classrooms here). This is the location of our first Flood Garden.

Not only do we want to teach preschool-third grade but we would like to have our student stay finish their undergraduate careers in our school. The only way that we will know if our Flood Garden learning model is effective in providing a better education for our students, they really need to stay with us.

THE PROBLEM: The laws of the land do not allow us to teach children older than 7 years on rented property so we are working hard to be able to buy a property were we can expand our school.

OUR NEED: Our dream is to buy one or two acres with enough space to build a larger Flood Garden for the children ages 8 to 18+!!!

What does that do?

2012-01-20T05:16:00.000-08:00

Looking into the mouth of a big Tilapia fish at Cecilia's farm (Flood Garden 2)

It is amazing to observe young children discover how stuff works. You can almost see giant cartoon question marks bouncing off their heads. It is even cooler to watch them talk to each other to try to figure things out. They throw out crazy questions, come up with hilarious theories, they question those theories, giggle, argue....Then, one of them gets brave enough to touch, or smell or taste and then to the others' amusement or horror, half of their theories are quickly thrown out and replace by facts. Then, through a series of dares, they begin take stuff apart, ask more questions, make more theories, laugh....and test stuff to see if it will break. Through play, their questions are slowly answered by the proof they see in front of them. If they are not satisfied, they question someone they perceive might have a better answer. So by the time you get the proverbial "why?" question, chances are that child has done some "research" of her own, because your answer will seem to always be followed by more questions.

If this scene took place in a science lab and the kids were adults, we would be observing a team of scientists doing their thing. In a real research lab, scientist set out to learn more. However, the conventional classroom seems to have become a stage to show off how much the teacher already knows..... hhhmmmm.....

So how do we create an environment that re-creates the learning opportunities of a research lab but is grounded on the realities that comes with engaging rambunctious primary school students??

In Arusha, most people do not have access to science laboratories not to mention workable labs in schools. However, we are surrounded by the world's best lab. Using the outdoors as the ultimate classroom is super exciting way to provide an affordable school laboratory. However, it is a bit scary because we have to begin from scratch.

We plan to experiment using learning stations in and around the flood garden. The teachers will provide a brief introduction to the students. But instead of choreographing the learning process as in the traditional model, the teachers will leave prepared clues for the the students to discover on their own. The students will be able to supplement the classroom lessons at the learning stations in small groups or on their own. It will be interesting hear their observations and classroom discussions with their teachers.

We are totally stealing ideas from Maria Montessori and others ed visionaries. We cannot afford all the cool comforting organic Montessori learning tools but we can adapt their best ideas and use our resources more effectively.

We are also lucky to only have 100 children in our care so that we can really control this prototype and collect data in a reasonable way.

Environmental Awareness

2012-01-14T10:18:00.000-08:00

Adding whimsy and decorative touches to one's garden is not an affordable concern to most members of our community. Recyclable goods are sometimes hard to come by because people have so little. Our students come from very humble backgrounds but there is still a lot to learn from the little they have

We aim to teach our students to be intensely aware of their environment. To do so, we have decided to use rubbish items to add whimsy to our Flood Garden. The items will not only beautify our space but will also be used in lessons and in our learning stations

David got a hold of some tires today and when buried in the ground, they seem to resemble a swimming dragon. I can imagine that the students will soon name this "dragon" and it will also become a place to exercise their imagination. They will be able to swim with and ride this dragon, sleigh it to save the princess or fly to many adventures.

Dare to imagine a swimming dragon

We also want inorganic items in the garden to teach about what can and cannot be recycled. It will be fun to watch the children bring rubbish that catches their eye to add as sculptures and accessories to the garden. The entire neighborhood is a classroom now and we will have to make a treasure bag for each child to collect on class walks and on the walks to and from school.

There are a thousand teachable moments in a pile of trash...there is good trash, bad trash, beautiful trash, "don't touch this ever again" trash, "put that in the compost pile" trash, "oh no, that is NOT trash" trash and more

David had this great idea to use empty bottles as sculpture pieces. He found bottles of many colors. There are many lessons to be learned from glass, its components and uses. We would like to build a learning station around the bottles. I would love to get ideas on the lessons we could create right using these bottles.

Learning from one's own environment is the only way to understand it enough to know if, when, what, why and how to change it. Using the environment itself as a learning resource is a life long skill...

Here is a really cool idea from Learning Landscape for using recycled tires as a way to learn math through games.

When we get a bit more space, I would love to build the Learning Landscapes Math tire grid. It really fits into our outdoor classroom learning model!!

Creating a Beautiful Space

2012-01-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

this is a picture of some of the ornamental plants this little guy will help to plant today

We are planning to make the Flood Garden not just educational but also beautiful and inspiring. Our budget is extremely limited so we have picked up some scrap materials and acquired some ornamental plants to beautify the space. We, ourselves, were inspired by our friend Cecilia to surround our environment with beauty. Cecilia is an agriculture expert specializing in ornamental fish and plant farm and she will be a great source of professional development for the teachers. Also, we will build learning stations in her farm for the older kids to work in.

David found a bunch of bottles and he is thinking of ways that he can use these bottles to accessorize the Flood Garden.

Our Fish Pond

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

We originally dug a very deep pond so we could house more fish. However, the safety of the youngest children became a concern. So now we have a mini-pond where we will be able to learn about pond science and Tilapia without worry.

We were also going to use a plastic pond liner. However, a couple of elders came around and advised us to use bricks and water proof cement for our pond.

Getting advise from community members on how to build our fish pond

So today, we leveled the land around the pond and planted some water weeds to get it ready to host our ducks and fish

Already, the kids cannot get enough! They are very curious about what we are doing and we cannot wait till they are the ones explaining to the community what we are doing.

Too Good To Be TRUE!!!

2012-01-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

Today an elder from the community came by to share his expertise with fish ponds. How cool is that?

CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS???? Our animal homes are almost ready, our kitchen is almost done and our veggies are getting ready to harvest.

Our duck apartment is almost ready. We just have to finish the pool!!!

First Results!!

2012-01-10T10:28:00.000-08:00

Today, we sold a bunch of veggies and with the profit, we bought an exercise book for this student!!!

Our Students

2012-01-07T08:08:00.000-08:00

This little guy is ready to discover and learn

Our littlest ones are 2 years old which is the time of their lives where they have become mobile enough to discover their surroundings. We want to encourage their need for discovery rather than stifle that need inside a crowded classroom.

Our students come from an environment where the parents (mostly single moms, aunties or grandmas) are very busy trying to make ends meet. They come to MDFT because it has an rare English immersion program which is not the norm in public schooling. Parents also understand the special care and commitment that the MDFT teachers take with their children and the special education they will receive

By teaching them in the English language, they will have a better opportunity to find higher paying jobs within the hundreds of foreign companies currently investing in Tanzania. In our Flood Garden learning model, they will also learn self-sufficiency which will prepare them to become job makers.

Could one of these girls be the one to discover the cure for HIV/AIDS?

We are also very lucky to have a large number of girl students. In Tanzania, girls with average to low education are second class citizens. They will be subject to cultural submission and servitude to their husbands. The lucky ones, might work for foreigners as menial workers and/or domestic servants.

Tanzanian women are a the biggest unseen force in the every day economy of their country and in their families. They provide the day to day services that most take for granted. They are the image of small commerce in the markets and streets. I often wonder what would happen to the economy of the entire continent, if African market women went on strike for the month or even one day!! Food would be very hard to come by for most.

Even so, women are only expected to earn enough to get by but never enough to get ahead.

At MDFT, we want to use our Flood Garden as the ultimate science and social lab to encourage inquiry from the earliest age. We want to challenge with the sometimes mindless repetition of conventional education and create a system where students learn to question their environment. Questions lead to better understanding and better understanding leads to innovation.

5 year old Vanessa helping David create our fish pond to study water biology

Higher level mathematics are usually reserved for kids much older than those at MDFT. However, creating an outdoor classroom culture will allow us to introduce concepts like probability through game play, gardening and laughter.

Could this really be math homework?

Our students will probably never get an expensive education in city private schools or abroad. They might never have access to the latest digital technology to resolve day to day issues. However, we plan to teach them to learn from their current environment so that they will be the ones to improve it, even at a very early age.

Up Keep....Already?

2011-12-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

Wow! The weeds showed up right away. This is actually kinda cool (for now anyway) because weeding will be a great activity for the younger children to do as part of their Flood Garden duties. Maybe we can even have Patch Competitions to see who keeps the best weed free patch!!

Stuff to Show!!

2011-12-30T10:21:00.000-08:00

Almost ready for harvest!!

Today, we had some visitors drop by. The children are very, very curious about what they will be learning in the Flood Garden.

These students brought their grandpa to school so he can see our garden

LOOK AT OUR ONION!!!!!

Making the Homes for our Animals

2011-12-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

Today, many members of our community turned up to help us create our animal housing and our outdoor kitchen. We will be raising 2 ducks who will help us keep the fish pond aerated and full of nutrients and 4-6 hens who will be responsible for providing us with eggs to sell and help us turn the compost pile periodically. We will also have rabbits because they are cute and can make great classroom pets while teaching us great science and of course, we will raise Tilapia in our pond. The tilapia pond will be for pond science but as we learn more about raising them, we hope to build a much, much larger pond to sell the fish for a healthy income for the school.

Our Rabbit House

Nailing down the tin roofs

Our Maasai friends came around to help us design our Maasai style outdoor kitchen

This is a Hen House. Hope we will get lots of eggs.

This is the foundation for our Maasai kitchen. These upright logs will be part of the walls. Can't wait till its done!!!

So many helpers turned up!!. We hope they will be future costumers as well.

First Plantings!!

2011-12-20T11:45:00.000-08:00

This was a very exciting day. We actually got to make our dreams of creating a little farm come true. Our students are currently on Christmas holiday but with the help of a few kids that showed up, we got lots done.

Teacher Loveless and one of the MDFT moms started by clearing all the debris and creating a compost pile

This patch looked perfect for onion!!

I love tomatoes!! They come in so many colors and tastes so tomatoes had to go in the ground. Can't wait to taste these.

BEANS!!!

Spinach will be a new addition to the school meals

Vanessa and Belinda helped design and color our temporary crop signs

Sitting at the edge of the outdoor classroom

It doesn't look like much now, but we have big dreams!!

PREPARING THE SOIL

2011-12-19T11:20:00.000-08:00

Our raised beds

David taking a break from the sun in the shade garden area

We decided to use traditional organic methods to preparing the soil. We used manure to start with but then used all the yard waste to create a compost pile. We will probably feed the soil with the compost when it is ready because it will be most economical. We also hope to rotate our crops to encourage better nutrients.

Since we do not have very much room to plant, we decided to use raised beds

deciding the size of the beds

We added broken bricks not just to add a little decor but also to create a path for the children and the visitors

Finding Support in the Community

2011-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

One of our goals as a team is to make sure that we can have the support of the school parents, our neighbors and our community. Because we are very low in funds, we are hoping to find resources in the form of knowledge, materials and care taking help from the good people of Arusha.

One of the first people we met with was Cecilia. She is a wonderful and knowledgeable resource for us. Cecilia has a degree in agriculture that she is using to turn her property into a nursery for exotic plants and ponds. She is hoping to cater to the landscaping needs of the many hotels, businesses and resorts that being built around Arusha.

Cecilia harvesting eggs from her chickens

Cecilia raises chickens, rabbits and tilapia as well as exotic fish and plants. She has been a great help and we plan to send our teachers to her farm to learn about horticulture and farming techniques.

As soon as we began breaking the grounds at MDFT, people started to come around and as questions. Soon some of the elders came around to give us their wisdom and show us how things were done traditionally. We soon found that some on lookers knew people, who knew people, who knew other people who could help us with the stuff we did not know. Wow this is awesome!!

The local elders give us advice on how to set up our fish pond

David studying a sketched idea on the ground

A local expert helping us design a better fish pond

David considering the local experts ideas

Getting the Teachers on Board

2011-11-22T09:42:00.000-08:00

Head Teacher Jackie (3 year teaching experience)

Like in any school, having the teacher's support is the most important step of any plan for change. So, today we sat down with the MDFT teachers to introduce the ideas of using the Flood Garden as the center of the school curriculum. We spent the day making lists of things we needed, and drawing maps of our new Flood Garden project.

Left to right (a friend of the teachers), David Gido (in blue plad), Teacher Loveless (pink vest), Head Teacher Jackie (in Red), MDFT Parent helper (in back), Teacher Nixon (in black jacket), Vanessa (5 year old MDFT student) on the day we broke ground

Our new academic Flood Garden team is Head Master and Flood Garden Director David Gido, Head Teacher Jackie, brand new teachers Loveless and Nixon. We will also be counting on parents, students and community members for their help.

The MDFT teachers, although young, are very enthusiastic about participating in the Flood Garden learning model. They are excited that they do not have to teach in stuffy overcrowded classrooms and even happier that school does not have to be as boring as they remember it. The team immediately began to design the grounds today. The idea of making a Maasai style house as our outdoor kitchen came from them. They are interested in teaching history to the students by showing them traditional Maasai building techniques.

MDFT Teachers working breaking the ground of the Flood Garden

(left to right) Head Master David and Teacher Nixon getting design suggestions from our clients and the real experts...The Students!!

CLEAN UP DAY!!

2011-11-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

David Gido (MDFT Head Master) and Student during clean up

Today we began cleaning up the front yard in order to begin getting the soil ready for farming. How did we not realize that there were so many opportunities under all this rubbish? Well, we will see what treasures and adventures we can create for our students.

Our goals for this month:

Clean up the yard and turn the soil
Make the plans for our Flood Garden
Get the teachers on board with the idea of making the Flood Garden the center of the school curriculum
Begin to find community support
Convince our landlord that this is a good idea...hahaha!!

In the Beginning

2011-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

The MDFT front yard before the brain storm

At Making a Difference Foundation Primary School (MDFT), we have one objective: To create an education model that can make a profound and lasting impact in our students's lives in order to transform their future. We have lofty goals of educating Tanzanian's next scientist, business entrepreneurs, social developers and decision makers.

Our immediate problems are as as follows:

1. Our source of income depends on what a few parents can pay as school fees, charities and luck!
2. Many parents cannot afford our school fees but we cannot turn away students in need
3. Our classrooms are very crowded and we desperately need to expand
4. We lack traditional school essentials like textbooks, notebooks, pencils, labs and resources, etc
5. We do not have a way to ensure that our students are getting nutritious brain food and all we can provide for them is a cup of watered down porridge every day.
6. We so not have a way of impacting our community to create community support
7. We lack professional development opportunities for our teachers and staff

So one day we began to brain storm to see how we could resolve our problems. Since part of our aim is to teach our students how to find resources and work to become self-sufficient, we as a school had to learn how to practice what we intend to preach.

We decided to create a school farm in our unused front yard as the simple answer to many our problems. The school farm would help us diversify our income, start a parent cooperative where they could exchange sweat equity for school fees, create outdoor classrooms to lessen overcrowding within the traditional 4 walls, replace the immediate need for traditional books, labs and other conventional resources (the farm is the best textbook!!), introduce a better diet for our school meals program, create Kitchen Garden models to spread to our community the idea of growing one's own food in a crowded, low income urban setting, and among many, many other things, create a place were our teachers could learn and innovate their lessons and skills every day!

We decided to call our little farm the FLOOD GARDEN because we intend to flood our community with children who are skilled and able to take up the current economic slack and help fix the immediate issues in their own communities. We also want to FLOOD the community with innovative ways to improve their diet, income and budgets from the ideas of our little urban farm.

Our over-crowded classrooms

PLEASE FOLLOW OUR STORY OF HOW WE MEAN TO MEET OUR LOFTY GOALS.