By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer and Hannah Fraser, News Editor
Embark Sustainability’s community Burnaby Learning Garden is moving from outside the Technology and Science Complex (TASC) 1 to the field behind the Maggie Benston Center (MBC). They will transition over the next few years as they break down the current wood plots at TASC 1, buy longer-lasting aluminum plots, and move the soil. The Peak spoke with Marie Haddad, director of engagement, and Pablo Vimos, gardens manager, to learn more about the move and Embark’s gardening cohort program.
In 2023, Embark celebrated the garden’s 10th anniversary. “All the garden beds are made of wood with a long life of 5–6 years, pushing. But we’ll be extending it by repairing/rebuilding the garden beds,” Vimos said. He noted that lumber became expensive due to COVID-19, making the old beds “not sustainable to keep repairing.” After discussing the gardens with SFU Facilities, they decided to move to permanent garden beds — such as the aluminum ones for their separate Student Union Building Learning Garden — as they would last longer. While rebuilding the wooden beds every three years costs about $950 in materials and labour costs, Vimos noted the aluminum beds cost $1,800 with a “lifespan of over 20 years.”
Vimos explained that the original garden at TASC 1 has 60 garden beds, but Embark will not move all of them, given that the aluminum garden beds are still expensive. The not-for-profit will shrink the number of beds down to 30, with Haddad noting that 10 beds have already been moved to MBC. Embark is waiting on 20 more aluminum beds to transition the rest of the old beds. When asked how long they will be in the MBC field, Vimos said, “with Facilities, we have a three-year lease agreement,” with the lease having to be renewed.
“The garden cohort programs or any of our other programs are never only for students who are learning about environmental science majors or climate majors; they’re really for anyone.” — Marie Haddad, director of engagement, Embark Sustainability
Embark uses the garden plots to run their learning garden programs. Last year, the program had 25 garden graduates, training up to 12 students per semester. The garden cohort meets once a week for 1.5 hours, with the first 30 minutes having a “teaching element” and the remaining hour being for hands-on experience, according to Vimos. Haddad added that “students learn this practice of sharing. You grow your food, you share it with your own family, you share it with your friends, your cohort members, and then a lot of the harvest also goes to the Food Rescue Program.” This program rescues healthy food that doesn’t meet store criteria for sale, thus distributing the food to students at SFU. Last year, 945 kg of food was rescued from Nester’s Market, providing 1,700 meals according to Embark’s annual report.
When asked what’s next for the Burnaby Learning Garden program, Vimos said, considering student interest was low for the summer cohort, Embark will be changing the cohort into a gardening stewardship where teaching is more informal. He explained that the gardening stewardship will happen at students’ available time: “They can come anytime, any day of the week [ . . . ] as long as the garden is being maintained.” Haddad added that while students learn from Pablo, “there’s also some new members who are going to help out,” allowing for a “students-teaching-students moment.”
She also shared, “The garden cohort programs or any of our other programs are never only for students who are learning about environmental science majors or climate majors; they’re really for anyone.”
