Loughborough Public School Greenhouse Opening

Wilma Kenny | Nov 02, 2022

After several years’ dreaming, planning, fundraising and hard work,

last week the Loughborough Public School’s new domed greenhouse and kitchen classroom were officially opened. A crowd of students, teachers, friends, parents and community supporters were greeted by a host of the current senior students offering vegetables, dips, bruschetta, cookies and other delicious treats. The students proudly admitted they’d prepared this food themselves in their new, well-equipped classroom/kitchen.

The greenhouse is a lovely sight, its new raised beds freshly planted with vegetables started in the SFCS greenhouse by the students working with the foodbank garden there.

Senior student Luke Peck welcomed the guests, telling of his move a few years earlier from a Toronto suburb to “this place with a lake and trees and countryside.” He spoke of his pleasure in learning to connect with the natural world, which is so much more accessible in a place like Sydenham.

Al Macdonald, the teacher who has guided his students through the several-years’ process to achieve the greenhouse and kitchen, also spoke of people having become separated from the natural world: “Nature is timely, magical — we must remember our place in the natural world; when we learn to care for it, it will care for us: land-based learning empowers us as we learn to grow and cook our own food.”

He emphasized that the very presence of the greenhouse is evidence of the power of community. Support has come from the Kingston/Cataraqui Rotary Club, as well as all the other Rotaries in Kingston, the Township of South Frontenac, Limestone School Board, Trousdale Home Hardware, Loughborough Lions, and many community individuals.

As Macdonald said, “This is a grand beginning, but it is only the beginning: the magic is still to happen!

Cutline the pic is of Al Macdonald and a group of students from the LPS class who originated and "sold" the idea of a greenhouse and a classroom/kitchen several years ago: they are now senior students at SHS.