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The Dixon Dragonflies Project 
Early last school year, a group of Dixon teachers decided they wanted to make their school a greener school and to teach the students about sustainability – the Dixon Dragonflies were hatched (Dixon’s logo is a dragon). With the help of a few committed parents, we enrolled a group of interested students. We initially thought we would like to join the Terra Nova movement, but then decided to create our own project!
 The teachers’ goal was to teach the children about the growing cycle, about native plants and how to cut down on waste. But the students’ main goal was to grow fruit and vegetables they could eat, and to have pretty flowers in classroom windows!
We started small with the purchase of compost bins for each classroom, a large compost outside and parents building us two raised vegetable planters for our already established, but under-used Friendship Garden, funded by a School Board grant and a donation from our PAC.
With the help of Dolores Altin, we applied for and received a grant from Evergreen Canada. Dolores drew us  up some fabulous plans for the next step of the project that involved the greening of our very sterile Primary annex courtyard. Now, a year later, we have a new raingarden that helps solve our annual puddle problem– built for us by the school board’s maintenance crew under the tutelage of Don Landy, a large bed to plant a tree to provide shade for nearby classrooms, and three more
raised beds built for us by a group of seniors at Minoru Centre. We are thrilled to have the seniors’ expertise and are currently planning more beds and planters with them.
Last week we celebrated our first harvest by inviting all our supporters to enjoy a soup  made from our vegetables by our own Dixon chef, and ex-student, Mark Marin. Mark was taught by Chef Ian Lai, so he very familiar with the idea of creating local, delicious meals.
Our seniors, parents, Evergreen, school board staff as well as the out-going school board trustee, Sandra Bourque and two city councilors, Linda Barnes and Harold Steves, who helped us apply for a UBCM grant recently, all attended and enjoyed the luncheon. Sandra also donated some plant and herb cuttings for our beds, and Harold has offered to help us with fruit trees!
 Over the winter the group will meet weekly for a variety of dragonfly craft, vegetable planning sessions and the never-ending weedings. Any interested Dixon students are welcome to attend – we even have some preschoolers showing interest! We are very proud of the progress we have made and are especially thrilled that this Dragonfly project has garnered support and expertise from so many in our community, and that our students are so excited about growing and eating locally.
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