Meika Halliday-Gunn andher brother Graeme
Last summer we grew a few rows of vegetables in the garden beside our church. Darcy, one of the adults in our church, told us about Grow a Row, Give a Row, a program from the Edible Garden Project and North Shore Neighbourhood House.

The idea is that when you plant vegetables in your own garden, you plant some for the program at the same time. The Edible Garden Project then gives the food to people in the community who need it. We liked that idea, but thought we could grow vegetables and give all of them to the program.

After church one spring Sunday about a dozen of us from the Sunday School planted seeds and buried potatoes in strips of soil that Julia and Beth from the Youth Group had dug in the lawn. Some of the preschoolers could barely lift the little shovels, but everyone helped.

Through the hot, quiet days of the summer, Luke from my Sunday School class weeded and watered the rows, even when the rest of us were away on vacation.

Then in August, we picked the vegetables. There were lots, but the potatoes had done super well. We dug up 18 kg of them. That’s how much my brother weighs.

We are already hoping to do it all over again this summer. Two members of our Youth Group, Pepe and Logan, have been making compost through the winter ready for planting as soon as it’s warm enough in the garden at St. Clements.

Mieka Halliday-Gunn is a member of St. Clement’s Sunday School and is seven years old.