Kitchener 'food forest' aims to feed youth while regenerating the environment

With shovels at hand, dozens of youth and other volunteers dug up the ground behind Rockway Public School in Kitchener to create their very own "food forest" with blueberries, mulberries and strawberries.

They broke ground on April 25 as part of a nurture youth-led gardens program organized by the Smart Waterloo Region Innovation Lab (SWRIL), which not only aims to feed youth, but to regenerate the environment. 

"We're unique because we're bridging this gap between ecological restoration and community restoration," said Nikola Barsoum, the project lead of SWRIL's youth-led program that came up with the idea for the forest.

"How do we create spaces that take care of the land and take care of the needs of our children and youth in our communities and have it be youth-led as much as possible so that they're part of creating that solution?"  

The forest, which is the first of its kind for the group, includes plants like blueberries, mulberries, strawberries and apple trees for youth to harvest food from.

"We are seeing the need for reforesting our school yards," said Barsoum. "There's a lot of teachers who say, 'It would be great if all youth could got to forest schools, but they can't so can we bring the forest to the schools?'"  

Barsoum said their ultimate goal is to "turn Waterloo Region into one big food forest".

Empowering amid climate anxieties 

Amara Johnston is a co-op student with SWRIL who is studying environmental sustainability at the University of Waterloo. They find that the food forest program helps them deal with the climate crisis and subsequent anxieties around it. 

"It's really super empowering," said Johnston. "Especially being able to study these applications of sustainable agriculture and then actually be able to do it has been super, super amazing."    

Theo Mcleod, a 12-year-old volunteer with the project who helped design the forest, finds it helpful too. 

"We are actually facing a climate crisis and if we see more greenery then we can see more oxygen," Mcleod said. "And oxygen is something everything needs." 

SWRIL is run by the region, and provides programs and initiatives aimed at youth. 

"It makes me feel upset that we are letting this beautiful planet go to waste," Mcleod said.