Grand Opening of the Bee Hive Kitchen at South Canoe

On Friday, June 14, 2024, South Canoe School celebrated the grand opening of their newly renovated “Bee Hive” kitchen. This project has been many years in the making, beginning with a BCAA grant application first made in 2018 when the school was re-opened.

The Bee Hive is a multipurpose space which functions as a classroom and shared kitchen space for the breakfast program, hot lunches, and a learning space for cooking, baking, dehydrating, and other exciting projects.

The renovation includes a new deep double sink, cabinets, dishwasher, double stove, a student hand-washing station and, hopefully one day soon, a rolling kitchen island. This accomplishment would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of many individuals.

Principal Sandra Major acknowledged the privilege of working, playing, and learning on the traditional and unceded ancestral land of the Secwepemc people. The Bee Hive kitchen will be a space for lots of work and play.

Teacher Emily Styles explained, “At South Canoe, we believe that one way we can learn how to connect to the Land is through food. Growing food, witnessing the cycle of the seasons, being humbled by the power of the weather as it dictates how our food grows, gratefully receiving what the Land provides, learning that food is really a gift that is created from sunshine and rain and a healthy ecology of soil, and nourishing our bodies with those gifts – these are experiential and embodied ways of learning that we are connected to and dependent upon the Land, and that caring for the Land is incumbent upon us.”

“I would like to thank former South Canoe Principal Isabelle Gervais, parent Serena Caner, and staff member Emily Styles, who was a driving force behind this project. Also, thank you to the SD83 Operations team for their expertise and hard work,” expressed Principal Major.