History
The beginning thoughts of Our First Garden, INC go back over a decade during the rise of the Green Schools movement across America. Allen Stenstrup was actively involved in the Green Schools movement and was completing professional development workshops and speaking at conferences on the strengths of Green Schools. He was making school visits to both acclaimed and beginning Green Schools. He observed the Green Schools Teams and the types of projects they were completing and what made the programs a success at the school.
He recognized that Green School Teams were a great opportunity for students to gain skills in leadership. It was a beginning for youth voice to be heard at the school in a meaningful way. While projects were diverse, he was impressed with how teams were changing their school site. Gardens, green houses, orchards, natural play areas, wetlands, and arboretums were replacing manicured lawns and asphalt play areas. Some were connecting with the school lunch programs and community markets. All were connecting to the curriculum and were places of learning. When students moved on to their next school they were leaving behind a legacy to the future students to carryon and grow.
Al was beginning to take the Green School model and methodology to other countries. One of those countries was Guatemala. In the Peten region of Guatemala, in partnership with educators from the Rainforest Alliance, workshops with local teachers were being conducted on an annual basis. The Rainforest Alliance had been working with the Guatemalan teachers on a variety of environmental topics that connected with the conservation management of subtropical forest regions. The teachers were a mix of experienced and new elementary and secondary teachers. They shared a passion for education and the environment. Over the years the Guatemala teachers had showed the ability to take ideas from the workshops, adapt and improve them and then share them in their schools with very little resources.
During the three day workshop in 2014, Green Schools was a featured topic. The teachers were introduced to the topic that emphasized the process of service learning and a School Site investigation. The teachers visited a local school for a half day of gathering information about the school from students, teachers and community members. They would do an inventory and make a school site map. The teachers would meet in the evening and make plans for projects we could do at the school the next day with the whole school community. Every year we did the Green Schools topic, gardens of some type always were in demand. So each year we would develop some type of garden, orchard or plant native trees. In 2016, at the Las Gaviotas School in Melchor De Mencos, teachers and students constructed a simple garden. With some soil, some transplants and seeds, and sweat a small garden was formed by students along the side of the school building. The teachers and students wanted to name the garden and painted on the school wall “Nuestro Primer Jardine”. Later that year, Al took the name home and started the paperwork for the making of the organization Our First Garden, Inc.