27 November 2019

The Victorian Schools Garden Awards (VSGA) for 2019 have been announced with four of Melbourne’s Catholic schools having their gardens recognised and awarded.

The Awards have been presented since 1977 to reward and celebrate the gardening achievements of schools, their students and community in existing and newly established school gardens. They are run annually across both metropolitan and regional Victoria.

St John’s School, Footscray, was a double-winner, taking out a regional award and a Catholic Education Melbourne award for Most Engaging Garden for Learning for their urban farm.

A group of children represented our school at the 2019 Victorian Schools Garden Awards today. We had been informed that we had won a regional award for our beautiful farm; however, when we got there, we were thrilled to discover that we had also won an award for the Most Engaging Garden for Learning. The certificate was presented to us, along with a voucher for $1,000 worth of garden supplies. We also received $350 for the regional award, so we are looking forward to getting some ideas from the children and spending the vouchers to make our farm even more awesome. We met Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia and had some time to do a little planting of our own.

Archdiocese of Melbourne: Catholic school winners

Regional awards

• St Raphael’s School, Preston West
• St John’s School, Footscray
• Bethany Catholic Primary School, Werribee North

Maxicrop: Best Edible Garden award

• Catholic Regional College, Sydenham

Catholic Education Melbourne: Most Engaging Garden for Learning award

• St John’s School, Footscray