By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PRINCETON — Alice Waters, a world-renowned chef and advocate for local and organic foods, spent time at the Princeton Day School on June 3 during a garden party to celebrate the school’s organic garden project.
At the school, located off Elm Road, Ms. Waters talked to teachers, staff, parents and students about school gardens and her focus on the importance of educating children about the production of organic food. Ms. Waters founded The Edible Schoolyard project in California, which provides urban students in Berkeley, Calif., with an organic garden and classroom for learning about nutritious produce.
Ms. Waters’ trip to PDS came after the school was named grand prize winner by Kiwi Magazine among U.S. independent schools based on the school’s efforts in incorporating organic, locally grown foods into lunches served in the school cafeteria.
”We want the food experience at PDS to help students learn how to keep their bodies and the planet healthy,” said Liz Cutler, a teacher who serves as the school’s sustainability coordinator.
Earlier this year the school won the national Green Cup Challenge, a competition between similar schools based on reducing electricity use and slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
The school’s organic garden, the site of Ms. Waters’ talk, grows vegetables and flowers and serves as an outdoor classroom for students, who harvest produce for consumption at the school.
In other PDS news, two seniors have been named as recipients of prestigious National Merit Scholarships — Juan Carlos Melendez-Torres of Princeton and Georgia Travers of Hopewell.
Students qualify for the award by taking the PSAT examination during their junior year and achieving certain scores in the verbal, math and writing sections. A committee of admissions officers and school counselors then chooses recipients from those students who are assessed to have the strongest combination of accomplishments, skills and potential for success in college studies.
The two PDS seniors, who are among the 2,500 selected students, each will receive a $2,500 National Merit Scholarship.
Juan plans on attending the University of Pennsylvania in the fall.
Georgia will attend Dartmouth College.
Of the graduating Class of 2009, approximately 10 percent of students will go to college in possession of academic scholarships.
In other news, PDS students Dominique Jones, Bailey Outerbridge and Julia Miller will sing at The Metropolitan Club in Manhattan from 5 to 6:15 p.m. June 27 as they continue to raise money through their Cabaret for Lives campaign.
The three PDS students have raised $3,805 through various fundraising efforts. The money will be used to provide food to African children through the international Doctors Without Borders program.
Professional Cabaret singers Clark Warren, Sharon Paige and Debra Griner, accompanists David Shenton and Frank Underwood, and two other PDS students, Alexandra Clint and Nick Muoio, will also perform at the event.
For more information, visit http://www.cabaretforlives.com.
gforester@centraljersey.com
