OKC Elementary School Wins 'Best Community Collaboration' Award For Garden

Cleveland Elementary School won the "Best Community Collaboration" award for their student-involved garden.

The award comes from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

It's the first year of the statewide garden contest, which seeks to highlight the impact of school gardens in creating teaching opportunities for nutrition, agriculture and experiential education in a variety of disciplines.

Their curriculum follows the gardening cycle starting in August, where they learn about seasonality, climate and weather, planting seeds in the fall, learning about the harvest and then learning about healthy eating along the way.

Sarah Mossman, the garden educator at the school, started it almost 10 years ago and has loved watching it and the kids grow.

"They are enjoying tending to their own foods," Mossman said. "And then the benefits of healthy eating from them connecting where their food comes from."

Mossman says she would love it if some of the little gardeners grow up and want to be farmers, it's some of the kids favorite time just to be outside and enjoy the outdoors.

Mossman said they're honored to win "Best Community Collaboration," but will continue to work towards the Best Garden award in the coming years.

The school garden is in partnership with OKC Beautiful, and they're proud of the success of this program.