milestones
Lindsay Babineau,
recently-retired executive director of BC’s
Agriculture in the Classroom program, at the popular Pencil Patch garden in Abbotsford.
GRANT ULLYOT
Ag educator all set to just relax Lindsay Babineau has been a key part of Agriculture in the Classroomsince its inception.
By Grant Ullyot A
fter a long association with this province’s Agriculture in the Classroom (AITC) program, Lindsay Babineau has retired as its executive director. She says she has no immediate plans for the future, except to “kick back”.
The AITC is a non-profit
organization that works with educators to bring agriculture to their students. It is supported by the ministries of agriculture, health and education, private donors and the agriculture community.
Babineau recalled that the program’s roots go back to 1982, when several professionals started bringing together their concerns about the lack of support for agriculture.
“There was a national conference at which a group from government, including Dave Sands from the Ministry of Agriculture in Abbotsford, along with Ron Sera, Dave Freed and Sidney Massey, decided something had to be done to offset the lack of concern. They were just a volunteer group trying to bring something together. “In 1997 they approached me when I was teaching school at Aldergrove Secondary with their idea. Dave Sands had been given a $50,000 grant by the Ministry of Agriculture to put something together and hire a staff person, because they weren’t making much progress finding volunteers. “Dave asked me if I would be willing to leave my teaching position and head up Ag in the Classroom. I was teaching agriculture and horticulture at that time and decided to give it a try. There was an empty office available in the new Ministry of Agriculture office building in Abbotsford. I started working part-time and then full-time once I determined it was something I wanted to do. And I have been in that same office since 1997.”
Today, the Ag in the Classroom program far exceeds the expectations
10 British Columbia Berry Grower • Fall 2015 of the starter group.
“It is much bigger than anybody could have expected,” says Babineau, “thanks in large part to the introduction of the very successful BC school fruit and vegetable snack program. It propelled AITC to a level of popularity it still enjoys today. “We started with 10 schools in 2005 and this year, the 10th anniversary of the program, we will have 1,480 schools receiving the fruit and vegetable handouts. This past school year there were eight million servings going out to almost 500,000 students. “Now we have seven full-time staff and have our own program office in Abbotsford.Over the years we have added programs such as Take a Bite of BC, which allows us to put fresh product into school culinary arts programs in 30 secondary schools. This year we added milk to the fruit and vegetable program, which means 83,000 Kindergarten to Grade 2 students will now be drinking milk. “And this past year we put a program in place to allow schools to sell the fruits and vegetables they grow and use the money raised to finance other school projects. Our little Spuds in
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20