Sustainably Speaking: New Leaf Prep Academy expands school orchard
GREEN BAY, Wis. (WFRV)- In recognition of Earth Day on Monday, faculty and students from New Leaf Prep Academy were joined by members from NEW Leaf Foods to expand the community orchard located on the school ground.
This is part of NEW Leaf Foods ‘Community Orchards Project’ that has planted multiple orchards around the area. Last year was the first iteration where the group added orchards at Chappell Elementary, Red Smith K-8 School, Edison and Lombardi Middle Schools and Southwest High School.
Most recently, an orchard was installed at Green Bay East High School and the organizers said in a press release, that more are on its way during year two. These projects were made possible by many sponsors, including Prevea, WPS, R.E. Management, the Law Firm of Conway, Olejniczak & Jerry, Humana, and the Leadership Green Bay Cohort Team 5.
Head of School for New Leaf Prep Academy, Paige Christoff, explains that this orchard will be a welcomed addition to the school.
“We do a lot of education here on nutrition at New Leaf Prep Academy, so they are learning a lot about honoring our bodies needs with food and healthy nutrition.”, says Christoff. “This provides another aspect in that and showing them where their food is coming from because a lot of students don’t know where their food is coming from. Helping them understand that growing our own food eliminates food miles which is a negative impact on our earth.”
It was a multi hour project on Monday where students and faculty as well as NEW Leaf Foods worked side by side to plant apple, pear, cherry, plum and peach trees, berry bushes, asparagus and supportive pollinator plants. Christoff says these plants will help the students in many ways.
“Understand where their food is coming from, understanding how to grow their food, eliminating pests, how we can do that in a way that’s environmentally friendly and so a lot of education will come from this as well obviously filling their bellies in the lunch program.”
There was lots of excitement to go around on Monday as the entire school came out to cheer on their fellow classmates who assisted in digging the holes, placing the plants into the ground, filling them in with dirt, watering the new plants and installing fences to protect from wildlife.
New Leaf Prep Academy 3rd Grade students Logan and Micah explain in their words the importance of having fresh and local food options.
“Because the second it comes off the plant, it starts losing its nutrition and then its a lot healthier,” said Logan. “You get more nutrition in it when its freshly picked and its really good to have it here,” said Micah.
Fellow 3rd Grade students Myla and Sophie said they learned a lot, but also had a great time with their friends celebrating Earth Day.
“For fruit trees it has to at least be like two or three feet to be able to fit the tree in.”, said Myla. “I learned that its very important grow trees because its good for our environment and we did it on ‘Earth Day’,” said Sophie. “It was really cool because everybody in the school came out and planting the tree was really cool and this was our first time planting trees that grow fruits.”
NEW Leaf Foods stated in a press release that they are open to expanding the orchard project to even more locations. A De Pere location as well as a local church food pantry are up next in the coming weeks.
