SANDPOINT, Idaho — Students enrolled in a Lake Pend Oreille High School elective class carried boxes of vegetable and herb starts through the doors of the Bonner Community Food Bank on Tuesday, the result of months of greenhouse work on the school’s campus.
The plants — cucumbers, tomatoes, and amaranth — were grown by students in teacher Rand Rosecrans’ Teen Living class and placed along the west side of the food bank building. Community members are welcome to take the starts at no cost to establish or supplement their own home gardens.
A Decade of Partnership Between Classroom and Food Bank
Tuesday’s delivery grew out of a relationship that stretches back roughly ten years. Rosecrans and Bonner Community Food Bank Executive Director Debbie Love have collaborated on various projects over that span, and for the past four years Rosecrans has organized visits in which his students help prepare the flower beds surrounding the food bank’s community garden.
Love has praised the ongoing connection between the high school and the food bank. “The involvement of the students is great for our schools and the broader community,” she said.
Rosecrans, who teaches Teen Living as part of the school’s Culinary Arts offerings, frames the class around service as much as skill. “Part of my philosophy is that if you can give to your community, it will give back to you,” he said. The course pairs real-world life skills with an emphasis on showing kindness to neighbors — a combination that, by at least one account, has made a lasting impression on former students.
Ash Lally completed the Teen Living class two years ago and planted her own garden the following summer, a direct result of what she had learned. Juliet Mercer, a current sophomore at LPO, is among the students enrolled in the class this school year.
Final Chapter for Teen Living Elective
The plant donation this week may be the last of its kind. Rosecrans is departing Lake Pend Oreille High School when the current school year wraps up, and the Teen Living elective is expected to be discontinued along with his departure. What began as an extension of the Culinary Arts curriculum — teaching students to grow food, care for living things, and serve the wider community — will not continue under its current structure once he is gone.
That makes Tuesday’s greenhouse run notable beyond its practical value to Sandpoint-area residents. For four consecutive growing seasons, Rosecrans organized student labor at the food bank. The rows of plant starts now waiting along the food bank’s west exterior wall are the last product of that annual tradition, at least as long as Rosecrans was the one behind it.
For North Idaho households, the availability of already-started vegetable plants offers a genuine head start on the short Panhandle growing season. Cucumbers and tomatoes both benefit from the extra weeks of indoor growth before transplanting, and amaranth — edible and hardy — rounds out the variety on offer. Residents interested in the starts can visit the west side of the food bank while supplies last.
What Comes Next
Whether the Lake Pend Oreille School District will preserve any version of the Teen Living curriculum after Rosecrans’ departure has not been publicly announced. The program produced concrete outcomes — students who went on to grow their own food and a decade-long volunteer relationship with a key community organization — that advocates for practical education may hope to see replicated in some form.
The Bonner Community Food Bank continues serving residents across Bonner County facing food insecurity. For additional coverage of North Idaho education and community programs, visit Idaho News Network.