Learning How Land Provides: Students Grow Food and Community Values

Darcy is a teacher and the new principal at Mah-Sos School in Tobique First Nation, where a strong, community-led nutrition program, supported by Kinvia donors like you, ensures that students have access to healthy breakfasts, snacks, and lunches every school day.

She understands the realities of making sure children and families are well-fed and nourished. Darcy's own two children are among the 120 students reaping the benefits of the school program’s meals and its land-based activities, including helping to plant a new garden.

They also reinforce the traditions and values of the Indigenous Peoples. As the students plant peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and Swiss chard, they learn “to see the importance of being able to provide food for one another. It helps foster a sense of community by being able to share with others.”

The garden and outdoor activities are fertile ground for connecting with the land, as well as with Indigenous traditions, Elders, and organizations. For example, a partnership with the Wolastoq Education Initiative—a First Nations-run nonprofit organization that delivers programming in STEM and Indigenous culture—helps maintain the garden during the summer and provides summer programs for the students.

Darcy notes, “Having people come in and share their recipes and their traditional knowledge is key for keeping our culture alive.”

So when the time came to forage for fiddleheads, a traditional food, Darcy helped arrange a field trip for her students and invited a local Elder to help with a cooking class.

So when the time came to forage for fiddleheads, a traditional food, Darcy helped arrange a field trip for her students and invited a local Elder to help with a cooking class.

At the close of the cooking class, students asked if they could bring leftover fiddleheads home for their parents and grandparents—a sign that they are carrying forward lessons of cultivating food, traditions, sharing, and connection.