LIBERTY — The Walker School, an elementary school in Regional School Unit 3, will host a FoodCorps associate for the 2012-13 school year. Katie Morabito will travel to Maine from Michigan in August to work with the students, teachers and the active group of greenhouse volunteers to extend what is in place at the school.

The school has a greenhouse that functions as a hands-on lab for student learning and as a source for food that is local. The food will be used for daily snacks and school lunch. Morabito will help solidify and expand the program with a focus on designing, planning, building, planting and harvesting a series of raised beds next to the school’s greenhouse.

Not only will the creation process will be an integral part of the learning, but it will increase the local produce used in school lunch. The raised beds will also be tied to a summer program that allows students to tend and manage the gardens and decide how to make the best use of what is produced. Student input in all processes related to the school gardens will be central to the learning taking place at the school, with students making decisions about what is planted and how it is used when the produce is ready for harvest.

The program will serve as a model for the other schools. The district recently submitted a grant proposal to the USDA that, if accepted, would help expand the school gardens that are in various stages of development in the other three schools by providing tools, storage spaces, hoop houses and seeds.

Walker School is seeking contributions to help supply the $5,000. To donate to the program, call Principal Glen Widmer at 589-4208 or email gwidmer@rsu3.org.

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