ALTEC offered an opportunity for students to compete for a $10,000 grant by giving a speech on what they feel the money’s best use would be. Ag students Cameron Alvey, Zach Perry, Eli Cornmiller, Caleb Young, and Trenton Tucker all went with an idea to compete with and they won. 

Their plan is to put in a garden behind the school and grow produce for the school cafeteria because of the misuse of that area. 

“Okay, so what we’re doing is, this spot right here isn’t used for anything,” said Ag teacher Derek Smith while pointing to an empty area behind the school.

There is an area behind the school where cars pull in and run up the grass. They’re going to take out any shrubs or stumps in the way and put in twenty-one raised garden beds. The beds will then be filled with soil by the greenhouse class and produce will be grown from them. 

“My shop class is going to actually build the boxes, and we’re going to line this with railroad ties and possibly actually build a fence around this too, like a wood picket fence where it looks nice,” Smith said. 

The tomatoes and lettuce being grown in the garden are going to be used in salads in our own cafeteria. 

“And we’re going to donate some of what’s left in the Summertime, if they don’t need it, and whatever’s left will be going to some of the local non profit organizations such as Warm Blessings,”senior Cameron Alvey added. 

In regards to winning the money, it seems that the students were quite confident in their chances. They went through a lot of preparation and had a unique idea compared to the others. 

“You always need to go into a competition thinking you’re going to win,” Alvey said,, “but we didn’t expect (to win) watching everyone else present. As we watched them, there were some good ones, and there were some bad ones, so I think we still believed that we were going to win. We were very prepared for our project.” 

Supplies to make this plan happen will be ordered before Christmas and the beds should be built and placed by the end of February.