Abbey Norek from Gerald—about 80 kilometres south of Yorkton—is this year’s Agriculture Student Scholarship grand-prize winner. Abbey produced a short video and entered it in the competition sponsored by the provincial Ministry of Agriculture.

The Grade 12 student attends Esterhazy High School, where she has spearheaded an effort to plant a garden on the school grounds, not far from the football field. The 30 raised garden beds will be planted with potatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and carrots next week. The vegetables will be used in the school’s cooking classes and distributed to local families with food security issues.

Norek is the school’s grounds keeper and is very active on the family farm. She will use the $6,000 scholarship to help fund her education at the University of Saskatchewan where she will be enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Bioresources this fall.

CJWW Agriculture Director Neil Billinger spoke to Abbey and you can check out the interview below:

Three other students received runner-up prizes of $3,000 scholarships in the competition. Noah Skoropad from Chamberlain, Rebecca Mayerle from Tisdale and Ty Annand from Nipawin will also be attending the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Agriculture and Bioresources.