Press/In the News

Third-grade students at Sippican Elementary School put their pencils down and took a break from the classroom on Thursday, May 9, spending some time outside sharpening their gardening skills.

As the weather turns warmer, students at Wareham Elementary School are beginning to plant spring crops as part of a food education program. The elementary school’s STEAM – science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics – program is teaching children to farm as part of a partnership with the Marion Institute, a non-profit organization that supports health through nutrition.

Marion Institute Executive Director Liz Wiley said the goals for the first one or two years of the Wareham-based farm will be to build up the site, ultimately leading to the planting of traditional plants and vegetables to produce nutritious food for those in need.

The Ithaca Rotary Club has awarded two $5,000 grants to nonprofit groups in Kenya and Costa Rica for projects that will tackle climate change. In Costa Rica, the Mastate Charitable Foundation is developing a family-run fruit tree and vegetable farm that demonstrates a new model for food production, which reduces the reliance on agricultural chemicals while drawing carbon from the atmosphere.

The Marion Institute was granted $20,000 in state funding for its South Coast Food Policy Council initiative, a program that brings together food pantries, farms, foundations, and social service agencies to promote food security.

This is the first year that Grow Education Farm-to-School program has come to Sippican School. Earlier this year, Sippican Elementary School’s third-grade students were visited by special guest Nate Sander of the Marion Institute for an outdoor lesson about general gardening practices.

The Marion Institute's Southcoast Food Policy Council is ringing the alarm to raise awareness that, despite things being relatively back to normal, food insecurity in the region never went anywhere.