VIDEO: A Garden, and Students, Grow at Cloudcroft Schools
Rachel Alm stretched a state wellness grant into a four-week summer program where kids build, plant, water, and grow together
Cloudcroft Schools focus on student well-being through initiatives like the free summer Farm to Market program
On a bright morning behind Cloudcroft High School, students are working outside the school’s greenhouse.
Some are filling raised beds with soil. Others are digging holes along a walkway for young trees. One 9-year-old has appointed himself keeper of the hose, running it back and forth across the lot so the diggers can keep the ground soft.
This is Farm to Market, a free summer program for fifth through 12th graders that has kids at the school four days a week through the end of June.
It is run by Rachel Alm, the district’s wellness room and community engagement coordinator. She built the program this year out of a state grant.
The money came from a New Mexico Public Education Department initiative to create “wellness rooms,” quiet spaces inside schools where students can reset when they are stressed or in conflict before heading back to class. Principal Cody Skinner applied for the grant and won it, Alm said, but had not settled on how to use it.
Digging into Accessible Wellness
Alm, who came to the district with a background in school counseling and a strong interest in agriculture, created an indoor wellness room, but saw a chance to stretch the idea outdoors.
“I really believe that growing plants has a place in wellness, especially for students,” she said. “We’re lifting things, we’re digging things. We’re outside in the fresh air, we’re active.”
The indoor wellness room is full of plants and soft lighting, a space where students can decompress. The summer program extends that thinking into a working school garden.
Alm’s path to the job wound through medicine, nutrition and education. She sees Cloudcroft’s isolation as part of the program’s purpose.
“Our geographic location here in Cloudcroft does set us up to limit access to certain health resources,” she said. “All of the data really shows that that’s an area where we are limited here.”
The four weeks are built to grow. The first was construction, when students assembled a tool shed, raised beds and greenhouse benches.
The second is dirt, which includes filling garden beds, mixing potting soil and tending a classroom worm bin that turns kitchen scraps into compost. Week three turns to water, including gutters newly installed on the greenhouse to catch monsoon rain.
The final week is business, when students learn what it costs to grow food, how to price it and how to sell it.
Supply and Demand
The response from families was immediate.
Alm said registration filled so fast she split the day into morning and afternoon sessions and let students sign up one week at a time rather than commit to the whole month. Demand, she said, has spread mostly by word of mouth.
Each day starts inside with circle time and a talking piece, often a garden tool or an irrigation nozzle. Whoever holds it has the floor. Students go around saying how they feel and what they liked or disliked about the day before, then head up to the greenhouse, where, as Alm put it, there is always a plan and almost always a little chaos.
The students seem to be absorbing more than how to plant. Paxton, one of the enrolled kids, said he wants people to understand where food actually comes from.
“Clearly we didn’t just plant it,” he said. “We’ve been digging and filling and all that stuff all day, so it’s definitely a long process.”
Alm said the biggest surprise has been the students who arrived unsure whether they even liked gardening. Several told her on the first day they had never done it before.
“Now those are the leaders in my group,” she said. “They are the ones who are reaching for the hose and saying, hey, everybody, let’s go make sure that everything is watered.”
Growing Beyond this Summer
Her hope for the long term is a garden that touches every student in the district, not only the ones who sign up for summer or join her garden club. She imagines lunchroom scraps fed into a composting program and classrooms taking turns to water.
She is also looking for help for expanding what the program can offer. Building fencing tall enough to keep deer, elk, skunks and raccoons out of a high-elevation garden is, she said, no small job, and she would welcome a community work party.
Alm said that she wants students to walk away with an appreciation for what the earth can produce.
“I want them to take pride in their school and have that experience of nurturing and growing something,” she said. “Nobody will take that away from them.”
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Great article and video Jonny. Thanks to Rachel Alm for the program, and teaching kids important lessons about getting outdoors, agriculture, nutrition, medicine, business, and more!
I love everything about this! This knowledge can follow them and enhance living throughout their lives on so many levels, nutrition, horticulture, natural science, self-care, enrichment with others...