Bria Lamb—Cultivating Connection and Confidence Through Garden-Based Learning

Bria Lamb is a Food Educator and Partner of Bayside Community Center, a 2024 recipient of the Youth Emotional and Mental Well-being grant .

This grant supports local organizations that support the mental and emotional well-being of youth and young adults within the communities of San Diego County.

Bria’s Story

“I started teaching in 2002. I taught for a decade, everything from kindergarten to university. I took a break. I had my second son, took a long maternity leave, and worked from home on my catering and wholesale baking business because I’m a chef and a baker. 

And then I had an opportunity to get into experiential marketing, which is the field of study for my undergrad. I have a master’s degree in education. I thought it was my dream job, and then I got laid off last February. It was a blessing in disguise because by August the whole company had filed chapter 11— everybody got laid off. So I had a jump start on the job market. 

But because of my personal journey with food and understanding how it affects my body and which foods to avoid and how to source better meats and vegetables and shop locally, I was alerted of the FoodCorps. I applied, and I received the position. 

I’m self-taught, but I already knew a lot and used the foundation of people like Amy Zink and Emalyn Leppard at Bayside Community Center and Montgomery Middle School to expand my knowledge as a gardener. It’s been such a fun learning experience. 

I come from a family of educators. I’ve worked with children my whole life, babysitting, I was junior camp counselor, a day camp counselor. So I started my MAT program and I worked a series of long term substitute positions.

I love being outside. I literally moved from Detroit to San Diego, so I can be outside year-round because it’s very stifling for me to be contained and cold. But the impact that I have seen on myself and on the children is extraordinary. Even the most obstinate or argumentative child, always says ​“yes” when I ask if they want to come help me in the garden.

And then the same kids that otherwise left to their own choices might choose Takis and Doritos and prepackaged ultra processed foods are clamoring to get the last piece of red cabbage that we grew, because they feel a connection to it. They saw when it was tiny, and then we’re checking it out like, ​“oh, look at our baby.” I call them our baby plants. Even a small child or an intellectually disabled child can understand what a baby is and that the baby needs our care.

Sometimes I have children that are having a rough day, they might be having a rough life. 

I speak with them calmly, I’m excited to see them and they can tell. They almost always come around. So even if it takes a little while, you gain their trust by knowing them, by interacting with them, by feeding them, by nourishing them. And they recognize that, and they really respond to it. 

We give them a chance to explore because this is in our nature to be out here. It’s in our nature to be connected. And so, I think that instinctively they respond to it. 

Knowing the things that are going on in a child’s body and the brain, they’re supposed to be active. It’s really counterintuitive and it’s not natural for them to be sitting quiet, in rows, in desks for eight hours a day. It’s just not. And I understand why a lot of education is sit down, listen, do this, or look at this screen, now that screens have become so prevalent. 

So the opposite is also true, that they’re supposed to run a little while. They’re supposed to move their muscles. They’re supposed to explore. They’re supposed to use their critical thinking in actual real-life situations and not just in simulations on a paper or on a screen. 

So we’re just really helping them tap into themselves. We’re actually reconnecting them because we put on rubber soled shoes, we walk on hardwood floors and cement to get to our cars in the rubber wheels to drive somewhere, to get on, walk on cement, and walk in a building with artificial circulation of air. 

Instead, we’re giving them the opportunity of walking barefoot and touching soil, and we’re sparking the desire to want that more. Even when I’m not at school that week and I come, I see the kids in the garden. They’re tending to the plants or the garden library I built, or they’re sitting on one of the benches that I put in because I wanted people to come and sit. 

Not only are they benefitting in the moment, but now they have the agency to come out and be in the garden on their own. 

What’s important is that they feel the connection that we are supposed to have with nature. This can spark their path toward making good food choices, maybe growing their own food or realizing that they have alternatives or they can grow their own food or find a way that they can nourish their bodies in a more healthful way. 

We are all part of nature, I feel like I blossom when I’m out in the sun just like a flower would. And I see it in the children as well. 

I have 650 students across two schools, including UTK, including severe special education stuidents, some of them never leave the special ed room. Some of them are not integrated. Some of them are integrated in classrooms, part time. So, all kinds of students benefit from this. 

The speech and language pathologist at Carson Elementary School sent me an email about a month ago saying, ​“I have something for you. I’m really excited to show you.” She has two students who are selectively mute and very rarely talk. They came to her after a garden class with me, and they had each brought a piece of purple cabbage with them that I gave them. I give everybody a piece and some of them eat it right away and some of them just want to hold it because it’s so vibrant and beautiful. And she got a piece of it too and they all ate it together. 

She was talking to them and telling them they were really brave for trying this new food. She asked them ​“how do you feel” and ​“do you feel the minerals and all the nutrients in your body?” Later on, she told the students ​“I still feel great from that cabbage, don’t you?” And they both said ​“yes,” they actually verbalized it. And she was so touched because they’re selectively mute. But in that moment, they felt so connected with her, with the cabbage, with the experience, and the feeling that they had inside, they said, ​“yes.”

And then she asked them, ​“will you make a card for Miss Lamb?” And these are the cards that they made and shared with me. 

It’s really impactful and the kids love it. When I walk on campus, they are always happy to see me. They shout from across campus ​“Ms. Lamb!” If I’m in the garden, in between classes tending to it, they come over, ​“how can I help?” or they’re telling me what they did to help while I was gone. 

So, they truly love it. Their sense of belonging to that garden has risen exponentially in both places. When I started classes in October, they were both barren and overgrown with just a couple of native plants that had survived. But now we’ve eaten cabbages and artichoke and cucumbers and snap peas and rosemary and mint and cilantro and peaches — I planted peach trees on the lunar New Year in both schools, and they already producing peaches at Linda Vista Elementary School. We’ve eaten strawberries, purple cauliflower, and kale. 

These are things that have grown from January to May, that they have been able to care for, see grow, and now eat, and they love it. They are clamoring to eat the last bit of whatever. And just raw, out of the garden, I wash it off, chop it up, hand it out, and it’s not going to waste because they really enjoy it. 

So, it’s the grounding that they get from touching the soil and being connected to the food that they’re eating and feeling like it’s special because they made it, I think it’s something that will stick with them.

This has been a really emotional week. A little girl told me, ​“you taught us how to plant food and you planted yourself in my heart.” A second grader told me that the other day. 

Their teacher told them, ​“this our last day with Ms. Lamb, if you want to say anything to her, please raise your hand.” And almost all of them raised their hand. ​“Ms. Lamb, I really love you” or ​“Ms. Lamb, I love your snacks” or ​“Ms. Lamb, you taught us how to grow food.” 

They are telling me about how they helped grandma in her garden. They’re telling me about how they’re going to have their own gardens. So, just seeing the agency that comes from connecting children back to nature in the most simplistic way, through our food. I know that I’m changing the trajectory of their lives.