Paulette Cote -A strong woman making a difference for Old St. Vital and surrounding areas by supporting the community food bank by helping provide fresh vegetable to students and families. An innovator who looks for opportunities to connect home-school-world by presenting ways to help others through volunteerism. A giving human who brings out the best in others by helping them see their own gifts and encouraging them to use them to help others. She is a voice of advocacy for those in Winnipeg.
Paulette Cote is a community outreach worker in Louis Riel School Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba and works at Ecole Varennes, a community French Immersion School. Ecole Varennes has 350 students who come from very diverse backgrounds and social economic situations. Seeing that many students did not have access to fresh produce, Paulette worked to ensure that all students in the school would have access to locally grown food.
Similar to David Boyd (Termonti, 2015), Paulette has worked on many projects and decided that she too would tell a different story, a story of hope and of resilience.
When Paulette joined the school team just over 5 years ago, she noticed that much of the food being given to children was quick and easy foods that were filled with sugar. She saw that these types of food did not match with the Manitoba provincial nutrition guidelines that state that fruit and vegetables should be served for breakfast, lunch and snack programs and that sugar should be limited (Government of MB, 2015). Instead of viewing this as a negative, she saw this as an opportunity and began to work with a team of teachers to help address this need.
While looking for opportunities, the principle teachers, the administrators, showed her the large, over-grown garden in the back of the school yard. Paulette jumped in with a team of 3 other teachers. The teachers and students focused on citizenship and active justice. The students began to weed and plant and soon the garden began to take form and produce. Once students and those in the community saw this, they became more invested.
Paulette looked for more opportunities to expend this project. She worked with the teachers on the gardening team and paired up with Winnipeg Harvest, our main foodbank in Winnipeg. She saw opportunities to work with key stakeholders in order to meet the need in her community and ensured to consult with those who may have a direct or indirect stake in this venture in order to have greater impact (Mulligan, 2018, pp. 173-176).
photo credit: Debra Duncan
Challenges
Along the way Paulette was met with a variety of challenges that she was able to meet head on and address. Some key challenges that Paulette identified in our conversation were:
Statements by staff of "not my job"
staff changeover of many of the original committee members
change of administrators who did not see the value in the gardening
concerns by staff that this competes with academics/diminishes academics
Custodial staff concerned about increase/change in work procedures
In order to address these challenges, Paulette worked with a wide range of people in order to help create more clarity in the connections to academics, the value for the project, and the community involved so that families could continue to advocate for this important program within the school.
Successes within the school
Paulette continually demonstrates that she is a change agent (Mulligan, 2018, pp. 183-184) by focusing her energy on areas that she is most passionate about, using research food scarcity and local healthy eating building connections and working with a team of leaders to make the St, Mary's Road Food Bank and Ecole Varennes connection strong and beneficial for all groups involved. During our conversation, Paulette identified many successes over the last few years as she built this program, these connections, between the different organizations.
Access grants as students were now following the provincial guidelines for nutrition
Many staff were connected to the project
Community was excited to contribute by weeding and harvesting in the summer months
Parent Advisory Committee involved and provided resources and funds
Able to provide weekly volunteers to the local food bank through student volunteers
Strong Student Advisory Committee who did fundraising for the food bank
Students learned from presenters Winnipeg Harvest and teachers the roots of poverty through the lens of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Students used the garden as a safe place at recess; many of the students using the garden at recess, lunch and after-school were children who struggled during the school day
Connections were made between families as they worked the gardens together over the summer creating multiple friendships across generations
Small and large group business contributions (St. Leon's Market - plants and soil, Reimers Gardens - soil, Superstore - food, plants and fertilizer, St. Vial Biz - watering throughout the summer, donation of plants and seeds)
Academic tie ins to soils, composting, food source, plants, lifecycles of plants and animals in the garden
Leadership opportunities for generosity with volunteerism
We Scare Hunger fundraiser by grade 7-8 classes
Daily fruit baskets for each class in which different classes went shopping for fruit and vegetables and washed, counted and delivered them to classes
Students would make foods from the harvest in the school gardens (applesauce, green tomato relish, rhubarb compote for ice cream sundaes on final harvest day)
Harvest supper for all students and families that helped in the garden in any capacity where guest brought food prepared from their gardens and Paulette prepared pasta sauce from the garden to be served
Students view of themselves changed - year one - only 2-4 kids/class viewed themselves as gardeners, year three - only 2-3 children in the class did NOT see themselves as a gardener
Paulette repeatedly shared that the key to success was sharing resources, allowing everyone to share their passions and skills, be flexible on time and commitment, and allow for multiple entry points for all people to be able to contribute.
Personal photos of family in the garden at the school
Timeline
Hired as Community Outreach Worker and gathers data and finds that key areas of concern are poverty, access for healthy foods, childcare and creates a systems approach to address this following Maslow's hierarchy
Additional teachers join a committee to weed and plant the overgrown garden - this is tied into curriculum and into active citizenship
Change the foods that are being served within the school and start to introduce students to a wide range of local produce as well as food grown within the garden
Apply for a wide range of grants from various organizations to get more healthy food to students and families. These grants help to provide soil, plants, food, learning materials, cooking supplies, public health nurses -in-training.
Community members get involved for planting, weeding and harvesting over the summer
Parent Advisory Committee helps support the garden and does a Farm to School vegetable fundraiser where people can purchase bags of veggies for those who need it
School and classrooms become involved in the Winnipeg Harvest Outreach program called Harvesting Heroes (Winnipeg Harvest, 2019) - guest speakers share how students can help and get involved
Food delivery begins to St. Mary's Road Food Bank (connected to Winnipeg Harvest) - food is from Superstore that has been donated as well as the school garden - students in grade 5-6 go weekly on a rotation to deliver, pack and hand out the food items
The garden continues to grow and people are fed. New data shows that students now view themselves as gardeners and helpers (Cote, 2020).
March 2020 the schools announce moving to remote learning and community outreach workers (as well as other valued staff) are laid off due to COVID
The COVID-19 Challenge
A game changer hit on Friday the 13th back in March as our province announced that all schools would move to remote learning, at the time only for 3 week, but those 3 weeks moved to 3 1/2 months. During that time, Paulette was instructed to not go ahead and plant the school garden. The community stepped in as families would show up, the gardening ninjas as they are affectionately called, not on any sort of schedule or plan, but because they saw a need. The families in the community weeded and added plants to the garden during the shut down. This allowed students to come back
to school in the fall with produce ready for them. Community members would come throughout the summer and early fall and harvest from the garden and only take what they needed for their families. It was beautiful to see community in action without the school leading the way, it truly is moving to becoming a full community endeavor.
Paulette wanted to do more and as she received notification in the middle of May that she would be laid off for the remainder of the year, she wanted to continue to support St. Mary Road Food Bank as she knew that there would be in increase in usage over the next couple of months. Working with Joan Boone, the organizer of the food bank, Carol and Craig Whitman, hobby farmers, and other gardeners in our community, Paulette went to work.
Carol and Craig, hobby farmers offered their land to Paulette and fellow gardeners in order to grow fresh produce for St. Mary's Road Food Bank as well as three other local organizations. The garden itself was 70x120 feet and produced carload after carload of fresh produce that was delivered to the foodbank every Wednesday. The plot of land is located just out of the city and is next to a pond, which is used for irrigation.
Photo credit: Paulette Cote
Peter, Paulette's husband, is an artist and has been making pysanky, Ukrainian eggs, for decades and he decided to auction off a dozen eggs where all of the funds raised went to the food bank. The eggs were donated by Carol and Craig and they raised $3800 for the food bank so that they could continue supporting their ever-growing clientele. His story is shared in this Free Press article.
A key piece to taking action is ensuring that policy is in place so that the program can be sustainable (Mulligan, 2018, pp. 176-177). Paulette used the Guidance for Food Banks and Community Based Emergency Food Programs on Food Safety (2020) to create and train all volunteers of St. Mary's Road food bank.
Next Steps
Paulette is already planning ahead for next year. She shares how she is looking forward to growing this initiative. Within the school, some key staff and community members will take over leadership as Paulette turns her attention to supporting the foodbank by growing and expanding the garden plots.
Since COVID began back in March in Winnipeg, the food bank has seen an increase of 25%. St. Mary's Road Food Bank is a distribution centre of Winnipeg Harvest who is also seeing an increase of those requiring support. Previously at the local food bank they provided coffee, snacks and time to socialize when people were picking up their food, unfortunately this is no longer possible. Before March, people were able to access the food bank every Wednesday and now due to the increase in the number of needs and the decrease in the number of donations, clients only are able to access the food bank at this location once a week.
Paulette is not without hope, from saving seeds this year to be ready for next year, adding more "helper bees", volunteers, in the garden, creating recipe cards for vegetables that may be unusual for some families, and to organizing car pooling, once it is safe to do so, in order to allow those with limited transportation choices to help with the gardening on-site. Her husband is once again creating pysanky this holiday season, he is selling them on our local buy and sell and through Facebook and all eggs purchased, a portion will go to the seed and garden fund to continue to grow the plots. His Facebook page is called It's Folk, no Yolk, Egg Art by Peter (Czehryn, 2020). Next year she is also planning on expanding the gardening lot by adding another 40x120 strip of land and this will allow her to continue to provide more food to the foodbank in the form of locally grown produce.
She is making a difference in our community by be enabling other, engaging the community, exemplifying sustainable behaviors and encouraging others, making her a catalyst of change here in Old St. Vital in Winnipeg.
Behaviour change model
Source: Mulligan, 2018, p. 182 adapted from T. Jackson, 'Challenges for Sustainable Consumption Policy', in T. Jackson (ed.). The Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Consumption, London, Earthscan, 2006, p. 123.
References
Coté, P. (2020, November 11). Food Bank Gardening [Telephone interview].
Czehryn, P. (2020, April 3). It's Folk, no Yolk. Egg Art by Peter. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://www.facebook.com/eggartbypeter
Government of Manitoba. (2015). Moving Forward with School Nutrition Guidelines [Brochure]. Winnipeg, Manitoba: Author. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://www.gov.mb.ca/healthyschools/foodinschools/documents/mfsng/mfsng.pdf
McFee, J. (2020, April 21). Ukrainian Easter eggs help fund food bank. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/our-communities/lance/Ukrainian-Easter-eggs-help-fund-food-bank-569825311.html?fbclid=IwAR3PiFQRfjonluSNeBFIoj2LhPJKJIjV0QDKJ3ugwBu-AUgv9cZBHbpCe-Y
Mulligan, M. (2018). An introduction to sustainability: Environmental, social and personal perspectives. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Termonti, A. (Ed.). (2015, October 13). 'Optimistic Environmentalist' David Boyd says hope is key to action | CBC Radio. Retrieved November 06, 2020, from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-october-13-2015-1.3268141/optimistic-environmentalist-david-boyd-says-hope-is-key-to-action-1.3268189
Winnipeg Harvest. (2019). Winnipeg Harvest Program. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://winnipegharvest.org/harvest-hero-impact/
Guidance for Food Banks and Community Based Emergency Food Programs on Food Safety. (2020, April 20). Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/restoring/food-banks.html
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