Late last year the VSB Sustainability department awarded $43,000 worth of green grants to a variety of projects across the district.

The grants follow an exhaustive survey conducted with UBC that looked at the number of school yard food gardens in schools across the VSB. Over the past three years, the number has grown significantly from 63 sites to 84 sites.

The grants have come thanks to a partnership with Think and Eat Green @School (TEGS) a five year research project the district entered into with UBC on sustainability school food systems.

In 2014, the partnership awarded 25 VSB projects a total of $43,000 with $35,000 coming from UBC and $8,000 from a Vancouver Foundation administered grant.

VSB Sustainability Coordinator Kevin Millsip says one of the things these grants and the growth of school gardens in general shows is that the school food movement is growing.

"We've had 20 more food gardens start up in the VSB over the past 3 years with more on the way. All kinds of excellent work is happening in the district connect students to better nutrition, education on cooking and food preparation, education on the planting, growing and harvesting of food and connections are being made between the food gardens and numerous areas of study," he says.

Millsip says a big thanks need to go to the UBC TEGS project for all their organizational and financial support.

Schools interested in joining the school garden movement can learn more on the VSB Green Board.