REskwela's Vegetable Garden in Pineda Elementary School Pasig - Now in "Full Bloom"  

April 2024 – Since 2016, the Department of Education has launched a nationwide memorandum promoting the creation of school vegetable gardens to address malnutrition and food insecurity in public schools and communities.  

To help set-up its own garden, Pineda Elementary School in Pasig sought the help of Robinsons Hotels and Resorts (RHR) in August 2023. In response, RHR, through RLove, launched an REskwela program to offer assistance in the school garden development. 

The project involved a series of activities that included a mini gardening workshop where hotel employee volunteers, led by RHR’s Director for Human Resouces AJ Dela Fuente and Robinsons Land’s CSR Manager Huey Silo, learned about basic soil prep and vegetable growing. The training sessions culminated with onsite vegetable planting activities held together with the school community. 

Almost a year after project development, Robinsons Hotels & Resorts officially turned over the Vegetable Garden in April 2024 to Pineda Elementary School Pasig. Now in full swing, the garden benefits the school in a number of ways: it serves as a laboratory for hands-on learning of vegetable production for the students; and functions as a ready food basket that supplies the school’s feeding program, among other uses.  

With the abundance of fresh produce from the garden, the school is able to encourage consumption of healthy vegetables rich in proteins, vitamins and minerals among school-aged children, which improves learner’s nutrition.  

Among the vegetables varieties grown in the garden are pechay, sitaw, okra, kalabasa, tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant, upo, ampalaya, and labanos, to name some. 

Made possible through REskwela, the successful school garden project of Pineda Elementary School, exemplifies public-private synergy that contributes to improving the quality of education of deserving public-school children in Pasig. 

R Eskwela is RLove’s school assistance program that provides select schools & learning institution with support on the provision of supplies & learning tools that aid the education of students. It also offers support in school rehabilitation, and construction of learning facilities. 

RLove believes that education is the key to empowering every child in order for them to reach their highest potential to become our future productive members of the society.