The School District of Palm Beach County, Florida
Nutrition Education, Standards & Promotion
Schools and Community Gardens
Gardens of Dreams
Recognizing that contributing to the development of our students from the inside out will not only help students academically, it helps to mitigate emotional eaters. Too many of our students seek the comfort of junk food to make them feel better when they are under pressure and feel stressed. To contribute to a solution to empower our students to make better and healthier choices, to support the District's social emotional learning initiative and the strategic theme of Positive and Supportive School Climate, Talent Development and High Performance Cultures, School Food Service created the Garden of Dreams. This initiative cross pollinated a school serenity garden with an empowerment program to help strengthen students from the inside out ultimately contribution to the nutritional, emotional and physical health of the whole child.
On October 2nd and 3rd 2017, the first Garden of Dreams was installed on the campus of Omni Middle. In an effort to change the middle school culture to one that embraces a healthy mindset in all areas of wellness, this pilot program began with the 6th grade students since they were just joining the campus. Each month, students were introduced to a new mindset to focus on to help strengthen them from the inside out and contribute to a more successful academic and personal middle school experience. Administration, Faculty and Staff and Omni were encouraged to embrace and to incorporate each mindset into their classroom when possible.
The garden itself provides the space for students to reflect on what is happening in their lives, how they are responding (or reacting) to the events that are present, engage in the self-discovery process, recognize the importance and impact of their choices and how their actions contribute to their results. From the perspective of School Food Service, in addition to supporting our District counterparts, our primary purpose is to nurture these middle school students so that they feel good with who they are and their nutritional choices are healthy which will contribute to the healthy development of their physical bodies as they move from children to young adults.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on October 27, 2017 to unveil the garden and to acknowledge the donor Keep PBC Beautiful. School Board Member Frank Barbieri, Dr. Jennifer Sanders, and Anais Diaz (Legal Aide to Senator Kevin Rader and the Sun Sentinel) were in attendance at the event.
Opposite the garden is the Wall of Dreams, a series of encased bulletin boards provided by School Food Service where students have the opportunity to post their dreams. The intention is to nourish their minds and reinforce and remind students as they move between classes about what matters most to them and how academic prowess contributes to their success.
Wall of Dreams...
What makes the launch of this three phase/ongoing program super exciting is that the intention of the program overall maintains the fidelity of the scope of School Based Wellness Nutrition, Fitness and Emotional Well-being which aligns with the goals and objectives of the District on multiple levels. The goals and objectives of School Food Service, our Wellness Policy and the departments it supports, and the whole child as it relates to academics and student assimilation and overall contributions to their success. We anticipate that this will be the beginning of a culture change at Omni Middle since next year, these 6th graders (who will then be 7th graders), will hand off the garden to the incoming 6th graders as they as 7th graders embark on the next phase of this program while mentoring the younger students. Talk about a win/win/win!
By December, the depth and support of the program became even more evident when a Faculty Ambassador Team of 18 and a Student Ambassador Team of 54 were established to help infuse the mindsets into the Omni culture. Students created posters and articles to promote each mindset to include in the monthly parent newsletter.
In April 2018, Garden of Dreams T-Shirts sporting the monthly mindsets were provided to the SFS Omni Staff to bring this beautiful energy into the cafeteria to further solidify the connection between feeling emotionally grounded and making healthy meal choices!
We will be meeting with the principal and Omni Middle sometime in June to debrief the success of the program this first year, determine opportunities for a greater reach, identify gaps that we want to bridge next year, and discuss pre and post survey questions for sixth and seventh graders next year so that we can gauge progress from the students perspectives as it relates to nutritional and social emotional changes in their behaviors. We will also be planning a beginning of the year hand off celebration so the incoming sixth graders will learn about the Garden of Dreams from the seventh graders who participated for the first time last year. Since the Garden of Dreams is already thriving on the Omni Campus, next year we will incorporate two additional mindsets. September (Courage) and October (Growth).
The Monthly Mindsets that were implemented in FY-2018 were:
- November Gratitude
- December Random Acts of Kindness
- January Goal Setting / Dreams
- February Passion
- March March to your own beat Be Yourself!
- April Resilience Dance Between the Raindrops!
- May Bloom Where You're Planted! Be the Best Version of You!
Student Summary for Parent Newsletter: January 2018
Dear Parents, Students, and Faculty Staff,
The character committee of NJHS has been working to spread inspiration in the halls and cafe around Omni. These inspirations come in the form of vision boards that are found all around the Garden of Dreams. These vision boards include exhilarating topics from sports to academics and setting goals. This goes in with this month's theme of goal setting. Ted Turner once said about setting goals, You should set goals beyond your reach so you always have something to live for. This very inspirational quote provides the students of Omni with the desire to strive for excellence in all aspects of school and life. The areas explored in our vision boards include sports and academics, which is part of every middle-schoolers life. We believe that these additions to the Garden of Dreams and cafe will empower the students at Omni to achieve their goals now and throughout their entire life.
Another Garden of Dreams in FY-2019...
We are so excited because our community partner, Keeping Palm Beach County Beautiful, has generously agreed to fund another Garden of Dreams.
In early May 2018 by way of the garden newsletter, Let's Grow, the contest was put out to all middle schools in the District. Schools were provided the eligibility requirements, the space requirements, approvals necessary, team and care requirements, and were asked to submit a 500 word essay as to why they wanted a Garden of Dreams on their campus and how they would use it. The submission deadline was May 25, 2018.
The 2018-2019 school year winner was Howell L. Watkins Middle and their garden will be installed in the fall of 2018.