4.4 Article

Changing the menu: rediscovering ingredients for a successful volunteer experience in school kitchen gardens

Journal

LOCAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 16, Issue 6, Pages 569-583

Publisher

ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2011.577058

Keywords

volunteering; Canberra; school kitchen gardens

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This paper explores the role of a school kitchen garden in the lives of its volunteers. The garden, located at the Majura Primary School in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Australia, is the first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden (SAKG) in the ACT. Since its launch on 25 March 2010, it has acted as the demonstration site for SAKG in the ACT. While other schools in the ACT have kitchen gardens, they do not operate under the management of a formal programme such as the SAKG scheme. Literature on school kitchen gardens provides some empirical evidence on the benefits of school kitchen gardens for children (primarily from the pedagogical, environmental and health perspectives), but there is scant literature on the various ways in which a kitchen garden may affect the various stakeholders involved in its community. These stakeholders include parents and volunteers associated with the establishment and ongoing support of the school kitchen garden. This paper begins to address this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of adult volunteers associated with the Majura Primary School kitchen garden. A key finding was that volunteers experienced unexpected benefits, as well as challenges.

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